The fall from grace of Brazilian tycoon Eike Batista entered its final stages yesterday as his oil company OGX edged closer to a bankruptcy that would trigger Latin America’s largest ever corporate default.

Several months of restructuring talks with holders of $3.6bn of bonds ended in failure, prompting the company to prepare for a bankruptcy protection filing in a Brazilian court as early as last night, people close to the company said.

Mr Batista, who was Brazil’s richest man until a year ago, set up OGX in 2007. The ‘X’ – which features in all of the company names in his empire – was supposed to denote the promise of outsized multiple returns. The oil company missed a $45m payment on its bonds at the beginning of this month and was granted a grace period to negotiate with creditors of 30 days, which expires tomorrow.