Ex-RBS DCM Bankers Form Boutique

A former RBS DCM team led by Pablo Venturino has set up a new structuring and asset management business, White Bridge Capital Management. Based in New York and Buenos Aires, White Bridge will focus on 2 of the team’s specialties, trading and structured trades. It will also gradually venture into Asset Management, Venturino, MD and fund partner, tells LatinFinance. “Structuring was our bread and butter, and we knew that there was also an opportunity for us in trading,” Venturino says. The business will cover LatAm clients including governments, government institutions and banks, and involve various debt products and other instruments like swaps. Building asset management is a longer process. Thus far, a White Bridge Chilean Fund is being marketed to Argentine investors. It aims to take advantage of Chilean tax-exemptions to target several Chilean and international asset classes. It should close by the end of the year and is targeting up to $500m. The shop also has a special situations fund able to make a broad range of mostly short-term investments. Venturino is joined by former ABN/RBS bankers David Pinto and Orlando Alvarado, also as MDs. Hans Hertell, ex-US ambassador to the Dominican Republic, and Dario Ventimiglia, a former LatAm president at Telecom Italia, joined as fund partners. Professionals in the Buenos Aires office include former ABN LatAm energy head Mariano Gilles, as well as Alejandro Pueyrredon, Alexis Tchubarov and Ferdinand Porak. The BA office opened in January and the New York branch opened in August. A Venezuela office, targeting private banking clients, should also open this year. Venturino’s former team at RBS, which also included MD Carlos Vargas and director of loans Boris Espinoza, opted to take a buyout package in June. This followed deteriorating support for LatAm DCM and syndicated loans as the Scottish bank suffered through the credit crisis.