Latin Finance - March/April 2010 - 4

People BNP Makes LatAm Push BNP Paribas is growing the LatAm business, which it expects to be increasingly lucrative in the medium term. “The idea is more or less to increase our revenues by 75% in the next four years,” BNP’s LatAm head Louis Bazire tells LatinFinance. The region accounts for roughly 5% of the global bottom line, boosted by ﬁxed income trading. “The area, especially Brazil, is considered one of the growth areas in the group,” adds Bazire. In Q3 2009, BNP generated net proﬁt of €1.3 billion, up 44.8% year-on-year, and €10.7 billion in revenue. After constructing M&A and DCM in 2009, Bazire describes 2010 as a year of consolidation, although the French bank is starting a custody business from scratch. “We are also looking for a broker in Brazil,” adds Bazire, saying BNP aims to do this in 2010. Export ﬁnance is a major BNP focus and LatAm is a key region for this. It last year led a €4 billion multi-tranche Coface guaranteed ﬁnancing running more than 20 years for Brazil to import French submarines for military use. Another €2 billion was spent on helicopter exports to Brazil, adds Bazire, who declines to state terms. Bazire emphasizes this aspect of the business, adding that BNP is also ﬁnancing telecom and transport equipment trade, not just in France. BNP recently secured an Eximbank mandate for Ecopetrol, and Bazire says the return on capital for export ﬁnance is at least 70%. “We are driven more by RAROC than margins,” he adds. BNP is also engaged in LatAm cash management, trade ﬁnance, relationship banking, asset management and private banking. It has 500 people in Brazil alone. “We are going to increase our presence in the soft commodity ﬁnancing sector in Latin America this year,” adds Bazire. BNP’s push into DCM will be supported by long-term lending relationships with clients on the ground, adds the banker, who aims to boost the franchise’s ranking. “Our mission is also to be in the top 10 in dollars for LatAm [DCM],” says Bazire. M3 Moves Up at Citi Citi’s Latin America head Manuel Medina-Mora has been given expanded responsibilities, including the titles of CEO for consumer banking in the Americas and chairman of Citi’s global consumer council. In the new role, Medina-Mora oversees Citi’s retail branch network, the branded cards business and the local commercial bank in the Americas. He continues to be chairman and CEO of Citi LatAm and Mexico, reporting directly to Citi’s global CEO Vikram Pandit. Meanwhile, Ricardo Lacerda, former head of Citi’s Brazil investment bank, is growing a new Brazil-focused investment banking and asset management ﬁrm, BR Partners. The executive, who left Citi last July, has already hired four senior bankers and plans to expand the team to 40 people in the next several months. The e ort will focus solely on Brazil, where Lacerda, a banker who also previously led Goldman Sachs’ local operation, says he can o er clients the greatest amount of expertise. BR Partners was set up in November as a merchant bank focused on advisory, private equity and asset management. Initially, the e ort will focus on private equity and advisory, says the banker, noting that becoming a full service shop is a second stage objective. BR Partners expects to receive a brokerdealer license by mid-2010, which will allow it to become active in trading and asset management. Elsewhere, UBS keeps rebuilding LatAm. It hired Carlos Corona for DCM and Rod Eichler for EM debt, currency and derivatives sales. Corona, formerly in the LatAm loans group at Citi, is senior originator on the DCM team reporting to Mark Tuttle. Eichler, ex-RBS, will join in April, reporting to David Cannon. On the buyside, Vinci Partners, a São Paulobased fund set up by former managers of Pactual Capital Partners, has hired Clecius Peixoto, LatAm portfolio manager at Emerging Markets Management (EMM). Peixoto, who was based in Virginia, spent 11 years at EMM, which has over $12 billion in assets under management, and managed the fund’s LatAm portfolio. He joins Vinci as a partner and will run a Brazil-focused equity portfolio from the asset manager’s São Paulo o ce. Peixoto was apparently lured back to Brazil by the opportunity to participate in the country’s ongoing growth spurt, as well as interest in the domestic market, say people close to the executive. Vinci has merged its assets with those of GAS Investimentos, a São Paulo-based fund, bringing assets under management close to 8 billion reais. EMM has adjusted its coverage. CEO Felicia Morrow will assume day-to-day running of the LatAm portfolio with a team of senior analysts. Meanwhile, Claudia Arango, who was until recently senior vice president at AIG Capital Partners, has been appointed a senior member of The Rohatyn Group’s LatAm private equity practice. 4 LATINFINANCE March/April 2010
Latin Finance - March/April 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Latin Finance - March/April 2010
