Pactual has a Goldman Sachs-style investment banking partnership that last year generated about $1.1bn in revenues from trading. Talks between Pactual and Goldman to form a joint venture fell through last year, opening the door for the UBS deal. Now Mr Esteves will head up not only Pactual, but also the whole of UBS Latin America.
“The aim is to use our operation as a base for Latin America,” he says. UBS’s operation in Mexico will be integrated and the Pactual style of doing business will be taken to other countries that have the scale for it, such as Argentina, Chile and probably Colombia. The two banks do have some things in common, such as a huge wealth management business (Pactual looks after $4.6bn for wealthy investors in Brazil, UBS manages $2120bn in assets worldwide). But how well Mr Esteves performs outside Brazil, and how easily Pactual’s nimble, trading-heavy culture will fit with the inevitable bureaucracy of a huge institution like UBS, remains open to question.
In spite of his huge pay-out, Mr Esteves gives no signs that he will be jumping ship to enjoy the good life any time soon. “Pactual is my life. And my family. I don’t have hobbies. I like to read. I was made to make money, not spend it,” he recently told Brazilian magazine Istoé Dinheiro.
