LatinFinance - March/April 2016 - 51

Source: Reuters

division, report directly to Setubal instead
of the 11 staffers previously.
Ricardo Villela Marino, the great grandson of the bank's founder, is in charge of
Itaú Unibanco's Latin America operations
outside of Brazil. "He may be one of the
key executives of the future," says Luis
Miguel Santacreu, a bank analyst at Austin
Ratings in São Paulo.
Bradesco's position is different from
Itaú's. "It is a bank that is run by executives, not by shareholders. There is a team
of professionals and there are several
executive vice presidents who will be able
to take on that role. So the succession
process will not be difficult," says Ribas,
who adds that Bradesco's process has
been more transparent than Itaú's. Nevertheless, the identity of Trabuco's successor has become a question mark after
a plane crash last November that killed
Marco Antonio Rossi, the vice president
of insurance who was favored to succeed
Trabuco.
Executive Vice Presidents Sergio Clemente and Domingos Abreu are candidates
for Bradesco's top slot, says Santacreu,
adding that the opinion of Chairman Lazaro Brandão carries a lot of weight in the
matter of Trabuco's replacement. There
may be some competition among the 11
members of the executive board, but all of
them reflect the bank's culture, which is
very strongly entrenched at Bradesco.
"Trabuco has led a few acquisitions
and he has strengthened the Bradesco
corporate culture. He has rationalized the

Luiz Carlos Trabuco Cappi,
Bradesco

LUIS MIGUEL SANTACREU,
AUSTIN RATINGS

"TRABUCO HAS LED A
FEW ACQUISITIONS
AND HE HAS STRENGTHENED THE BRADESCO
CORPORATE CULTURE.
HE HAS RATIONALIZED
THE DECISION MAKING
PROCESS WITHIN THE
BANK"

Brazil's largest commercial banks*
The big league
BB
Itaú
Caixa Econômica Federal
Bradesco
Santander
BTG Pactual
HSBC
Safra
Votorantim
Citibank
0

100

150

200

250

Total assets (USD billions)
Source: Banco Central do Brasil
*As of September 2015

300

350

400

decision making process within the bank,"
says Santacreu.
"The bank's strategy was adapted to a
period of strong growth of the Brazilian
economy and to the integration of lower
income population, financial inclusion.
Trabuco has managed to capture that moment. He also completed the HSBC Brasil
acquisition and closed a bit of the gap with
Itaú."
Trabuco's successor will have to complete the integration with HSBC Brasil and
decide on new acquisitions and how to
proceed with growing Bradesco's international businesses.
Regardless of their identities, the banks'
new leaders will face a novel set of challenges. Bradesco, which has been trailing
Itaú Unibanco as the second largest private sector bank in Brazil, may now have
become too dependent on its domestic
market. "The challenge in an economy
which goes through a difficult time is to
continue to operate in a profitable way,"
says a non-Brazilian banker. "Their internationalization is still relatively limited.
Bradesco has purchased HSBC's entire
offshore portfolio, including big corporate
clients. But it may not be easy to convince
shareholders to expand abroad, especially
when public sector Brazilian banks are on
the retreat domestically," the banker says.
Itaú, on the other hand, has been pursuing an international strategy for a longer
time, and it has been mulling further
expansion in Chile and Colombia after its
acquisition of CorpBanca. However, Setubal says the expansion strategy does not
have to be rushed and can be pursued "one
step at a time."
Bradesco and Itaú Unibanco have
some common ground, though. "Both
have maintained close relations with the
government. As in any other emerging
markets they have to, in a way. But they
have done it in a rather soft way, which is
very different from the kind of collusion
that BTG tended to have," says the foreign
banker in Brazil.
Also, the succession processes for both
CEOs have been in play for some time.
The boards of each bank will decide on
candidates and that choice will then have
to be approved by the banks' respective
general assemblies. While Setubal and
Trabuco expect to become chairman of
Itaú Holdings and Bradesco, respectively,
they will not be guiding the banks, a
temptation that Setubal says he has been
learning to resist. LF

March/April 2016 - L ATINFINA NCE.COM 51

http://www.LATINFINANCE.COM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of LatinFinance - March/April 2016