Unibanco Bolsters Investment Bank

Brazil’s Unibanco is beefing up its investment banking business to take on Itau and Bradesco, as well as US and European banks looking to feed on Brazil’s fee pool. Unibanco will extricate its existing investment banking and capital markets businesses from the institution’s wholesale banking division, allowing it to operate independently. It has also hired two seasoned executives to lead the effort. Eleazar de Carvalho will head the investment bank. He was most recently founder of an asset management fund, and previously president of the BNDES and a senior executive at Citi, Garantia and UBS. Eduardo Gentil, best known for heading Goldman’s first Brazil foray between 1995 and 2001, and most recently hired by Credit Suisse in mid-2007 as an MD alongside Jose Olympio, has also been hired in a senior role. Both have held corporate roles as well. Gentil was CEO of Visanet, while Eleazar was chairman of BHP Billiton Brasil. Gentil and Carvalho will report to Pedro Moreira Salles, CEO of Unibanco. Unibanco’s international brokerage unit, Unibanco Securities, has offices in New York and London and is headed by William Bethlem, former head of capital markets at Unibanco in Sao Paulo.