U.S. bank bigger piece of a growing market with (comparatively) cheap money. Citigroup plans to buy the Brazilian retail brokerage Intra SA Corretora de Cambio e Valores. The move -- which still needs approval from Brazilian and U.S. regulators --represents a bid to "expand Citi's capabilities in Brazil by adding a leading retail brokerage to the company's consumer banking and institutional equities business in the country," according to a press release issued by Citi yesterday.

Terms of the transaction weren't disclosed.

"This transaction underscores Citi's commitment to providing a full range of financial services and [to] growing our business in Brazil," says Gustavo Marin, CEO of Citi Brazil. "The purchase comes amid rapid expansion of Brazil's capital markets and increased appetite for financial activities by individuals."

Easier money

Staying on the service-integration theme, Intra's managing partner Ezra Safra says "the most important message for Intra clients" to take from Intra's impending merger with Citi "is that they will continue to receive the service they are used to from Intra while gaining access to a full range of services offered by Citi."

Sao Paulo-based Intra says it is one of Brazil's three biggest independent broker-dealers. It has approximately $246 million in client assets and more than 15,000 active client accounts.

Though Citi says it's looking to raise $400 billion by selling assets over the next three years, it evidently couldn't resist an opportunity -- represented by its plan to purchase Intra -- to extend its reach in a market where credit isn't squeezed tight enough to crack a shot glass.

After a couple of sluggish years, Brazil's economy grew 5.4% in 2007. By last summer its central bank had tamed inflation enough to trim its lending benchmark to the low rate of 11.25% -- low for Brazil, that is. This has triggered a borrowing boom that has, of course, benefited the country's lenders.

In March 2008, Brazil's biggest non-state bank Banco Bradesco agreed to pay about $312 million for retail brokerage owned by Rio de Janeiro-based Agora Holdings.

Late in 2006, Credit Suisse agreed to pay $293 million for a majority stake in the Brazilian wealth-management firm Hedging-Griffo. About seven months earlier UBS acquired Brazil's Banco Pactual, an investment bank with a sizeable private-client segment. -FWR

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