Eike Fuhrken Batista da Silva (; born 3 November 1956) is a Brazilian-German serial entrepreneur who made and lost a fortune in mining and oil and gas industries. He engaged in a quest to promote Brazil's infrastructure with large-scale projects, such as the Porto do Açu. He was chairman of Brazilian conglomerate EBX Group, which was formerly the parent company of five companies traded on the BOVESPA's Novo Mercado, a special segment of the São Paulo stock market. These five companies were: OGX (oil and gas), MPX (energy), LLX (logistics), MMX (mining), and OSX (offshore services and equipment). Nowadays, EBX advises new startup companies and tries to rebuild itself again. In early 2012, Batista had a net worth of , ranking him the seventh wealthiest person in the world, and the richest in Brazil. By July 2013, his wealth had plummeted to $200 million due to his debts and his company's falling stock prices. Bloomberg reported in January 2014 that Batista "has a negative net worth." Forbes and Folha de S.Paulo quoted Batista in September 2014, stating that his net worth was –$1 billion. Batista is currently under arrest and has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for bribing disgraced Rio de Janeiro governor Sérgio Cabral, in order to secure public contracts. Early life and career Batista was the second of seven children of businessman , who was Minister of Mines and Energy in the João Goulart and Fernando Collor administrations and a former president of Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (now known simply as Vale), then wholly a state enterprise, between 1961–1964 and 1979–1986. His mother, Jutta Fuhrken, was born in Germany and, from her, Batista says he learned self-esteem and discipline, attributes he considers crucial to his formation as an entrepreneur. After spending his childhood in Brazil, Batista and his family moved to Europe when he was a teenager, due to his father's occupation. They lived in Geneva, Düsseldorf and Brussels. In 1974, he began to study metallurgical engineering at the University of Aachen in Germany. When he was 18 years old, his parents returned to Brazil. Batista remained abroad and began selling insurance policies door-to-door to make his living. In interviews, he often mentions that the "stress" and the lessons learned from this experience were essential for his education. Batista returned to Brazil in the early 1980s and focused his attention on the gold and diamond