Brazil's Itau Securities aims to be top with foreign investors

By Vivianne Rodrigues

NEW YORK, May 20 (Reuters) - Itau Securities, the brokerage arm of one of Brazil's largest banks, says it has a clear mandate to be the top seller and manager of Brazilian assets whether at home or abroad.

Itau has rapidly grown this decade in the lucrative market for equity and local bond sales, competing and challenging global brands such as Credit Suisse and UBS AG, market leaders in the Brazilian underwriting business.

"Brazil is all we sell," Roberto M. Nishikawa, the chief executive officer of Itau Securities told Reuters in an interview in New York. "We are not in the business of underwriting global bonds."

"But no foreign manager has the knowledge, the contacts and the expertise in Brazilian markets and companies that we have," he added. "We have been investing in carving space in that niche for the past five years, and we'll keep expanding."

As money from institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds starts to flow to Brazil after the country acquired investment grade status in April, Itau Securities is moving to be the first to tap asset flows that may reach at least $120 billion, according to the brokerage's estimates.

Banco Itau has been a fixture in the Brazilian retail and commercial banking markets for almost 70 years, but its presence in the capital markets only began to take form in recent years.

Although the bank has retail operations in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, it decided its best road to a global presence would be through the capital markets. Brazil, a member of the so called BRIC group of emerging market countries, would be its calling card.

Most of Itau Securities' international expansion efforts have been focused in Asia, where the brokerage has branches in China and Japan.