In a Wednesday securities filing, Sao Paulo-based JBS said that BNDES Participacoes SA, the investment arm of Brazil’s state development bank BNDES, opposed the plan, which included separating the company’s global operations and moving them to Ireland.

BNDES did not explain why it challenged the reorganization plan, JBS CEO Wesley Batista told analysts on a call from Colorado. A BNDES representative said the state agency will comment later Wednesday.

“The bank thought it was not the best road ahead for the company,” said Batista, adding that the current shareholder agreement with BNDES would end in 2019, which would then free it to reorganize operations.

Shares of the world’s No. 1 meatpacker plunged nearly 18 per cent on Wednesday, the most in eight years, signalling frustration with the end of a plan aimed at accelerating JBS’s growth, reducing fundraising costs, optimizing taxes and attracting a wider base of investors.

“This is a major negative surprise. The listing process had already been moving since May and a veto from this shareholder was totally unexpected,” said Pedro Leduc, an analyst with JPMorgan Securities. BNDESPar holds 20 per cent of JBS, making it the company’s No. 2 shareholder, after the Batista family’s 45 per cent stake.

Batista said there were alternatives to the reorganization but did not elaborate, except to say that listing North American assets on the New York Stock Exchange was one possibility. The region is the biggest source of revenue for JBS globally.

Among JBS USA’s businesses are one of the biggest beef packing plants in Canada — the former XL Lakeside plant at Brooks, Alta., with capacity to process about 4,000 head of cattle per day — and a cattle feeding operation nearby.

Under terms of the plan proposed in May, the JBS Foods International unit was to be listed in New York. Investors saw the move as the best way for JBS to become the first Brazilian multinational with a clear division of local and global assets.

The billionaire Batista brothers Wesley and Joesley, who are JBS’s CEO and chairman, respectively, expected the reorganization to be ready by November.

Change of command

The company’s shares fell as much as 17.6 per cent to 9.72 reais in Sao Paulo, their biggest drop since Oct. 15, 2008, cutting into their gains this year. Since the reorganization was announced, JBS had risen 43 per cent.

The reorganization was devised before a new Brazilian government swapped the senior management of BNDES. President Michel Temer tapped economist Maria Silvia Bastos to run BNDES and BNDESPar, replacing Luciano Coutinho, who was for years seen as a supporter of the Batistas’ push to internationalize JBS.

The idea of splitting Brazil-based and global assets gained traction because most of JBS’s revenues now come from overseas units, especially from North America. According to people with knowledge of the situation, executives had told investors in several road shows promoting the reorganization that BNDESPar was on board with the plan.

Abandoning the reorganization plan comes at a time when JBS has fallen under increased scrutiny from prosecutors and government auditors for allegedly providing Brazil’s former ruling Workers Party with illegal donations in the 2014 presidential campaign. JBS denied making any undeclared donations to the party or ruling coalition allies.

— Reporting for Reuters by Reese Ewing and Guillermo Parra-Bernal; additional reporting for Reuters by Tatiana Bautzer in Sao Paulo.

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The steadily widening blockades have sparked growing fuel and supply shortages and disrupted the harvest of a record soybean crop across at least 10 of Brazil’s 26 states.

Officials were set to meet with truckers late Wednesday in Brasilia to seek an end to the protests, but a presidential spokesman on Tuesday evening rejected a key demand of the protests to reduce the price of diesel fuel.

The widespread protests come as President Dilma Rousseff’s popularity has slumped to an all-time low because of a massive corruption scandal at state-run oil company Petrobras and an economic downturn.

The truckers’ strike has added to the economic malaise, slowing the delivery of parts and raw materials to factories while also forcing some farmers to idle harvesting machinery because of a lack of diesel fuel.

“There’s a lot of concern from buyers (of soybeans), especially the Chinese,” said a local trader working for a large multinational commodities company.

Soybean futures traded down slightly at US$10.14 a bushel on Wednesday but traders speculated whether international buyers might be forced to the U.S. market if the trucker strike dragged on longer in Brazil.

Independent truckers and trucking companies are demanding lower diesel and toll prices, changes to new regulations on drivers’ mandatory downtime during long hauls and better road conditions.

Federal highway police said the protests that began on Feb. 18 in a few towns in Brazil’s top soybean state of Mato Grosso have grown to 97 blockages across 10 states.

Brazilian police in shields and riot gear clashed with protesters before dispersing truckers blocking access to the country’s main port of Santos early Wednesday. Passage to the port was cleared, but police are concerned protesters could return to block access this afternoon.

Dairy farmers are pouring milk down drains for lack of delivery services in the south and fuel distributors have also warned of potential jet fuel shortages at major airports.

Stocks of soybeans at Paranagua, Brazil’s main grain port, could run out in as little as four days for lack of new deliveries by truck, port spokesman Ceres Battistelli said.

Brazil, which is entering the peak of the soy harvest, still transports 70 percent of its grains to port by truck. The country in 2014 was the world’s No. 1 soybean exporter.

“Most of our warehouses in Goias and Minas (Gerais) states were affected and are not receiving soy or corn,” said Hugo Okumoto, who oversees delivery of grains for Louis Dreyfus.

For now, trucks breaking the strike and driving past protesters are still potential targets of vandals.

“If a trucker decides to run a road block to deliver his load, guys run alongside his trailer and pull the drop gates so soybeans run out,” said Kory Melby, an agricultural consultant.

— Marcelo Teixeira and Reese Ewing report for Reuters from Sao Paulo. Additional reporting for Reuters by Asher Levine, Roberto Samora, Gustavo Bonato and Paulo Whitaker.

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