Brasil Foods Drops Most in Four Months on Shareholder Fight

BRF - Brasil Foods SA (BRFS3), Brazil’s largest foodmaker, dropped the most in almost four months after a newspaper reported a shareholder conflict over a board appointment.

The stock fell 2.8 percent, the most since Sept. 28, to 43.92 reais at 12:45 p.m. in Sao Paulo. Brazil’s benchmark Bovespa stock index slid 0.3 percent.

The pension fund for state-run Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PETR4), known as Petrobras, doesn’t support the appointment of Brazilian billionaire Abilio Diniz to BRF’s board, while stockholders Tarpon Investimentos SA (TRPN3) and Previ, the retirement fund for Banco do Brasil SA (BBAS3)’s employees, back the move, Sao Paulo-based newspaper Valor Economico reported today.

“Investors don’t like shareholder conflicts,” Luiz Roberto Monteiro, a broker at Renascenca DTVM, said in a telephone interview from Sao Paulo. “The conflict may taint management.”

Diniz is chairman of Cia. Brasileira de Distribuicao Grupo Pao de Acucar, Brazil’s biggest retailer and a distributor of Brasil Foods’s TV dinners and sausages.

Brasil Foods declined to comment on the Valor story, according to an e-mailed statement.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lucia Kassai in Sao Paulo at lkassai@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Attwood at jattwood3@bloomberg.net