MPX firm to change name to delink from Eike Batista

Brazil's MPX energy firm is to change its name next month to delink itself from embattled magnate Eike Batista who currently has a 29 percent stake in the company. The name change will be voted upon at an extraordinary shareholders meeting scheduled for September 11, the company said in a statement received by AFP Friday. The change signals MPX's determination to operate independently from Batista, who quit in July as chairman of the troubled power generation company he founded in 2001. A company spokeswoman would not confirm press reports that the X would be dropped from the name. German utility giant E.ON is to raise its stake in MPX from the current 36.2 percent to 38 percent, after investing the equivalent of $152 million through a capital increase finalized earlier this month. In July, Jorgen Kildahl, a senior E.ON executive and a MPX vice president, took over as interim chairman of the company. Batista's heavily indebted EBX business empire has been crumbling and his own net worth, estimated at $30 billion last year by Forbes magazine, has since shrunk by two thirds. The EBX empire of commodities and energy businesses include OGX, MPX (energy), LLX (logistics), MMX (mining), OSX (offshore oil and gas services) and other firms. But Batista has vowed to pay off all of his group's debts. Thursday, he announced the sale of 1.54 percent of the capital of OGX as well as the sale of 5.38 percent of the capital of OSX. Meanwhile, the president of Sao Paulo's Bovespa stock exchange, Edemir Pinto, said he was "frustrated" by the poor performance of Batista's companies, but denied that this "tarnished" Bovespa's image abroad. "I don't believe it tarnished (the image of Bovespa). I did not hear this from foreign investors. This happens everywhere... But in the case of Eike, we are frustrated," press reports quoted him as saying Thursday at a financial conference near Sao Paulo.