After scaling back its investment banking operations in Brazil, Deutsche Bank is looking to move its fixed-income trading businesses back into the country. With the election of Jair Bolsonaro, the bank is bullish on the economic agenda for Brazil moving forward.
The move would effectively transfer the bank’s fixed-income and currencies trading operations to Sao Paulo from New York City. In an effort to cut costs by eliminating 26,000 jobs in 2016, Deutsche Bank cut down its Brazil team in half as well as other parts of Latin America, including Chile, Peru and Uruguay.
“Our focus now is on revenue, in trying to broaden the scale of our operation here in Brazil and the relevance of our business locally and globally,” said Maite Leite, the Frankfurt-based company’s chief country officer for Brazil.
Leite views Bolsonaro’s administration as one that provides a “more positive environment” in terms of being more business-friendly. The move will also allow Deutsche Bank to provide more exposure to their hedging products with respect to the local currency.
“We now have the ability to offer more sophisticated, flexible hedging products for clients than before,” said Ricardo Cunha, a managing director responsible for the fixed-income and currencies business at Deutsche Bank Brazil.
Related: Brazil ETFs Breakout as Presidential Candidate Jair Bolsonaro Takes Lead
Bolsonaro Focused on Brazil’s Economy
Late last year, Bolsonaro entrusted Santander executive Roberto Campos to oversee Brazil’s central bank–a move that signals the polarizing Bolsonaro’s seriousness when it comes to fixing the languishing economy.
Bolsonaro, who has publicly admitted that his knowledge of economic policies is practically nil, is assembling a team of top-shelf economists to bring to life his plans to curb spending, while at the same time, divest the government from state-run companies and simplify the tax system. Campos, the treasury director at Banco Santander Brasil, brings to the table hands-on trading desk experience–the type of risk-reward analysis that could benefit the country’s economic policies moving forward.
The election of the polarizing Bolsonaro was the message Brazilian voters communicated to the world that anti-establishment was in and traditional politics was out. However, now the real work begins for Bolsonaro’s presidency.
Bolsonaro is inheriting a bevy of problems he must address during the course of his presidency and the faith of Brazil’s populace will hinge upon his success. Of course, Bolsonario’s biggest task is to help extract the country from its current economic doldrums, but his election is perceived by market experts as one that leans toward the benefit of the country’s capital markets and the latest appointment of Campos to head the central bank alludes to such.
This bodes well for Brazilians as the economy will be first and foremost on their minds since the country has been slow to recover after it experienced its worst recession to date. Unemployment levels remain high with double-digit figures and the country is drowning in public debt–74% of Brazil’s GDP.
While the annual GDP growth has posted positive gains as of late, it’s still not at a level where economists are optimistic about the future growth prospects. Prior to the election, the ideal situation to address Brazil’s current financial woes was to elect a president who is market-friendly to help stymie the issues by effecting policies that favor economic expansion and growth–now, they potentially have that in Bolsonaro.
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