Brazil Equity Issuers Pay Banks

This year’s equity revival is a boon for investment banks, some of which are making significant fees from ECM. Thanks to a deal for itself, Santander is the leader for LatAm equity fees year to date, with $62.74m, or 13.78% market share, Dealogic data shows. By revenue, JPMorgan is second, with $61.69m or 13.55%, while owing mostly to VisaNet, Bradesco comes third with $61.32m, or 13.47%. Of the $455.3m ECM wallet from LatAm/Caribbean year-to-date, $359.9m comes from Brazil. Despite a rotten outlook in January, this year is actually better for equity volume, with $26.3bn, up from $25.5bn in the same period 2008, according to Dealogic. The main risers by volume year-on-year are Santander and BTG, while Itau suffers the biggest drop. Equity makes up a hefty chunk of the core investment bank fee pool, which is led by JPMorgan, with $139.3m or 13.4% market share. Credit Suisse is second with $98.9m (9.5%) – boosted by a strong showing in M&A – while Bradesco comes third with $94.2m (9.0%). Surprisingly, the core investment bank (debt, equity, M&A) fee pool has contracted by just 8% this year, to $1.04bn, Dealogic data shows. Credit Suisse is the dominant M&A player by fees, with $51.1m, or 16.4% share of a pool that has shrunk by 43% this year. For debt, where the fee pool has almost doubled, to $285.4m, JPMorgan is leading with $42.8m, or 15% share. The other big year-on-year DCM improver is BofA-Merrill, which is now ranked seventh in the region for volume. Those doing poorly in debt league tables this year versus last include Credit Suisse and Itau, Dealogic data shows.