* Itau, Pactual win bond mandates outside Brazil
* Strategy seen paying off as expansion gains steam
* Underscores strength of local shops regionally
By Guillermo Parra-Bernal and Aluisio Alves
SAO PAULO, Feb 15 (Reuters) – Brazilian investment
banks, which in recent years gained muscle by snatching away
lucrative deals from their foreign rivals, are now showing their
might by clinching more mandates to handle corporate bond sales
across Latin America.
Itaú BBA, BTG Pactual and Bradesco BBI, all based in São
Paulo, are taking advantage of the busiest start of the year for
corporate bond offerings since 2007 to manage deals for
Argentine and Chilean issuers. As activity picks up, they expect
to land more mandates from Colombia and Peru.
Private and publicly controlled companies in Latin America
sold $24.2 billion in foreign currency-denominated bonds in the
year through Feb. 10, up from $14.28 billion in the same period
a year earlier, according to Thomson Reuters data.
More deals await Brazilian shops, which are besting their
foreign competitors in forging strong ties with customers,
funding deals and setting distribution networks rivaled only by
global banks. The retreat of traditional lenders in the United
States and Europe in the aftermath of the financial crisis of
2008 is also helping.
“Brazilian banks are now being taken much more seriously by
rivals,” said Renato Ejnisman, head of debt capital markets for
Bradesco BBI, the securities unit of Banco Bradesco,
Brazil’s second-biggest private sector lender.
Continued…
