The largest listing in the world this year, BB Seguridade Participações’s 11.48bn reais ($5.34bn) initial public offering was the brainchild of neither an international investment bank, nor an established local player. Instead, the idea to spin off the insurance arm of Banco do Brasil, the country’s largest bank, came from a relatively small, new firm, Brasil Plural. This is a point of particular pride for Sebastien Chatel, the firm’s co-head of equities and chief executive of its securities business. One of Mr Chatel’s colleagues, Pedro Guimarães, formerly of BTG Pactual, had a long-standing relationship with Banco do Brasil and retained it when he joined Brasil Plural at the end of 2011.
In an increasingly competitive Brazilian market, relationships are crucial. Brasil Plural, for example, was set up by former BTG Pactual executives Rodolfo Riechert and André Schwartz in 2009. Banco Pactual, as it was originally known, was sold to UBS in 2006 and then in 2009 sold again to BTG, a firm created by other Pactual bankers.
