Brazil-Based Wealth Manager Aims To Widen Footprint, Add New Revenue

Tom Burroughes

19 September 2013

A Brazil-based private banking firm that is 30 per cent-owned by Julius Baer intends to open offices outside the Latin American country’s two largest cities in search of wealthy clients, as growth slows in Brazil, according to a report by Bloomberg.

GPS Investimentos Financeiros & Participacoes will hire about 15 people and open branches in Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre to serve the states of Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul, Jose Eduardo Martins, a partner and founder of GPS, told the news service

Family Wealth Report contacted about the interview; Julius Baer confirmed the accuracy of the report concerning its involvement in GPS but did not comment on the specific remarks by Martins.

“The agricultural and mining commodities boom of the past years and the Brazilian emerging middle-class created a whole new world for wealthy people in Brazil that is far away from the big centers” in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Martins is reported to have said.

Growth in the industry will cool to 15 per cent this year from 21 percent in 2012 as the nation’s economic rebound falls short of forecasts, the report said, citing figures from Itau Unibanco Holding.

Assets under management at GPS have grown to about R16 billion ($7.1 billion) from R11 billion in May 2012, and the number of employees increased to 102 from 90, according to Martins, who said GPS may also expand in other Latin American countries, the report said.

GPS is looking for local partners in the Northeast and Central-West regions. It already has a local partner in Fortaleza, the capital of the northeastern state of Ceara, which Martins declined to name.

GPS’s acquisition of the wealth-management boutique Bawm Investments announced in December was responsible for about 10 per cent of GPS’s 40 percent growth in assets under management in the past 12 months, Martins said.

“Multifamily offices like GPS are taking clients from some banks because lower interest rates reduce returns on fixed-income investments and clients seek more advice and attention, which specialized houses can provide,” Martins said.