Brazil's Agnelli, who turned Vale into top miner, dies in crash (updated)

Banco Bradesco

20/03/2016 17:26

(Updates with official confirmation, reaction) 
    By Guillermo Parra-Bernal and Tatiana Bautzer 
    SAO PAULO, March 20(Reuters) - Roger Agnelli, the Brazilian 
banker who turned Vale SA  VALE5.SA  into the world's No. 1 iron 
ore producer, died on Saturday in a plane crash. He was 56. 
    Agnelli, his wife and two children were among seven killed 
when his Comp Air 9 turboprop monoplane slammed into two homes 
around 3:20 p.m. local time (1820 GMT), minutes after taking off 
from an airport in northern São Paulo, authorities said. 
    "We have lost a Brazilian of extraordinary entrepreneurial 
vision," President Dilma Rousseff said in a statement Sunday, 
adding that Agnelli had devoted his career to big Brazilian 
companies and shown commitment to the development of his 
country. 
    Sources said Agnelli was traveling to a wedding ceremony in 
Rio de Janeiro with his wife Andréia, son João, daughter Anna 
Carolina, and their two spouses. The weather was clear at the 
time of the crash.  
    In a statement, Vale said it learned of Agnellis death with 
"immense sadness" and said his 10-year tenure at the company had 
intensified its global expansion and transformation into a major 
global player.  
    Known for his discipline and feisty nature, Agnelli clinched 
the top job at Vale in July 2001 after 19 years as a corporate 
and investment banker with Banco Bradesco SA  BBDC4.SA , a major 
Vale shareholder.  
    He instilled a culture of meritocracy that helped make Vale  
Brazil's No. 1 exporter. To friends and foes, the key to 
Agnelli's success was accurately predicting the rise of China as 
a major minerals consumer, a crucial wager in turning Vale, a 
former bloated state-controlled firm, into a global powerhouse. 
    "He was a visionary that corporate Brazil will miss badly," 
said Lawrence Pih, who for decades ran flour mill Grupo Pacífico 
SA and sat on the board at the São Paulo Federation of 
Industries with Agnelli.  
    In a Harvard Business Review's ranking of the world's 
best-performing chief executive officers published in February 
2013, Agnelli came fourth, only behind Apple Inc's Steve Jobs, 
Amazon.com Inc's Jeff Bezos and Samsung Group's Yun Jong-Yong. 
He was the top mining CEO in the 100-executive ranking. 
    Agnelli earned the spot in the Harvard ranking after racking 
up a consolidated return of 934 percent during his tenure at 
Vale, whose market value more than doubled in the period. 
     
    KNACK FOR DEALS 
    Born on May 3, 1959 to a middle-class family in São Paulo, 
Brazil's largest city, Roger Agnelli studied economics at 
Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado in his hometown.  
    He began his career at Bradesco's corporate finance and 
investment banking division. His knack for engineering complex 
deals earned him praise from his bosses, who turned him into 
Bradesco's youngest senior vice president at the age of 29. 
    At Vale, he implemented a turnaround based on tough goals. 
During his stint, revenues rose 13-fold and capital spending 
soared more than 20-fold. 
    "I get paid to produce results, and the results are there, 
aren't they?" Agnelli told Valor Econômico newspaper in an 
interview in 2010. 
    However, running Vale as a multinational put him on a 
collision course with Brazil's ruling Workers' Party, which 
wanted Vale to shift from exporting raw minerals to more 
value-added products such as steel and fertilizers to create 
more jobs. 
    The government has influence in the company through indirect 
stakes held by state pension funds. 
    Agnelli clashed with former President Luiz Inácio Lula da 
Silva for firing 2,000 workers in the wake of the global 
financial crisis of 2008. Months later, he accused members of 
Lula's left-leaning party of trying to install loyalists at Vale 
and seek a bigger say in key decisions. 
    His brash style upset clients in Europe and Japan, as well 
as regional governments and politicians that were crucial for a 
company that depended on government permits, according to former 
employees who asked not to be named. 
    Lula's successor, Rousseff, stepped up pressure on Agnelli 
and succeeded in pushing him out in May 2011, just months after 
she took office.  
    Rousseff and Lula, who she named last week as her chief of 
staff, are facing a growing corruption probe at state firms. 
Vale has not been named in the probe nor is it under 
investigation.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N16R0E7 
    Following his departure from Vale, Agnelli founded AGN 
Participações Ltda and teamed up with Grupo BTG Pactual SA in a 
mining joint venture. 
 
 (Editing by Daniel Flynn, Nick Zieminski and Mary Milliken) 
 ((daniel.flynn@thomsonreuters.com; +55 11 5644 7701 ; Reuters 
Messaging: daniel.flynn.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: BRAZIL CRASH/