Barclays On Final Stretch of Equity Build

Barclays has hired Ricardo Lanfranchi, former head of Merrill Lynch’s Brazil equity brokerage business. Lanfranchi, who will head Brazil equity sales, is the most recent addition to a team being assembled over the past several months. He spent 12 years at Merrill Lynch in Brazil, most recently as president of Merrill Lynch CTVM, the broker-dealer, and was at Garantia before that. Stanley Rowe, New York-based head of LatAm equities for Barclays, says the Lanfranchi hire “underscores the firm’s commitment to building a global, full-service equities franchise.” Rowe tells LatinFinance the key areas of focus for the Barclays platform are sales, trading, research and capital markets, but declines to detail the next hiring move. He adds that recruitment for the effort is 80% done. Barclays already has an equities trading group, as well as a head of LatAm research – Roberto Attuch, based in Sao Paulo. Gabriel Barbara leads equity for Mexico, while Bill Rutledge runs LatAm distribution, based in New York. “We have many corporate and institutional clients that are new to the region, or want to expand their knowledge of LatAm,” says Rowe. While Barclays’ physical presence in the region is limited to Brazil and Mexico at the moment, Rowe says the plan is to have a regional equity business, and not one that focuses only on just 2 countries. Still apparently missing from Barclays’ equity roster, however, is a capital markets specialist.