A scandal surrounding Brazilian state-owned energy firm Petrobas has seen the resignation and arrest of the CEO and chairman of BTG Pactual.

Brazil's BTG Pactual - owner of Switzerland's BSI, the private bank - has announced that two men will take the helm as chief executive, as well as announcing a new chairman and vice chairman, following last week's arrest and subsequent resignation of Andre Santos Esteves in a national corruption scandal.

The bank elected Persio Arida as executive chairman and John Huw Jenkins as vice chairman.

The board also appointed Marcelo Kalim and Roberto Sallouti as co-chief executives of the bank.

"Andre Santos Esteves has resigned his positions as chairman of the board and as CEO," the bank said in a statement today.

Esteves, the Brazilian billionaire credited with turning BTG Pactual into the largest independent investment bank in Latin America, was arrested last week. The country's Supreme Court authorized the warrant to detain the financier on suspicion he and the leader of the government coalition in the Senate, Delcidio Amaral, allegedly tried to interfere in testimony related to a pay-to-play scheme at the state-run oil giant, Petroleo Brasileiro. BTG and Petrobras are partners in a troubled oil-rig supplier. Amaral has also been arrested.

News services said that prosecutors are preparing to file charges against Esteves, whom they suspect, along with Ameral, of trying to block a long-running investigation into graft at the state-run oil firm. Esteves denies the allegations. According to Reuters, Esteves still owns 28.8 per cent of the bank and his stake includes a so-called golden share which gives him veto rights on any board decisions.

Describing the new appointees, the bank said Arida has been professor at the University of São Paulo and at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, and has held research appointments at the Institute for Advanced Studies (Princeton), the Smithsonian Institution (Washington), and the Center for Brazilian Studies (Oxford). He is a member of the advisory board of the Blavatnik School of Government (Oxford) and a member of the corporate development committee of MIT. Prior to joining BTG Pactual, Arida was governor of the Central Bank of Brazil and president of the National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES). In the private sector, he was a member of the board of directors of Itaú, Vale, Unibanco and Sul América, among others.

Jenkins is a partner of BTG Pactual and is based in the bank's London office. Prior to joining BTG Pactual he was an executive at UBS Investment Bank from 1996 to 2007, where he held several positions, including chairman and chief executive. Prior to joining UBS, he worked at BZW Investment Management from 1986 to 1996 and at Hill Samuel in 1996. Jenkins has spent most of his career based in Asia and the US.
Kalim joined Banco Pactual in 1996 and became a partner in 1998. He was a director at Pactual responsible for investments until 2008 when he left to found BTG. He then became chief financial officer.

Sallouti joined Banco Pactual in 1994. Four years later he became a partner and until 2003 was responsible for fixed income in the domestic market, at which time he also became responsible for international fixed income. Following the sale of Banco Pactual to UBS, between 2006 and 2008 he was co-head of fixed income for emerging markets. In 2008, he became a founder of BTG Pactual and became chief operating officer, a post he occupied until September of this year when he became CEO of asset management.