Investment banks in Brazil are having to work harder than ever, faced with increasingly fierce competition and larger numbers of players on each deal. While local firms are sharpening their tools, hiring local talent and expanding product reach, international banks are often being held back by capital constraints. As fee pools are being shared between larger numbers of players, maintaining a costly outpost in Brazil may no longer be a viable proposition for some global banks.
Before the financial crisis, international banks gathered as much as 89% of total fees in Brazil in 2005, according to data by Thomson Reuters and Freeman Consulting. Since then, however, their dominance has been challenged and their share of the wallet has gone down to 49% for the period from January to June 10, 2013.
