Swiss UBS buys remaining 40% stake in Brazil’s Consenso family office

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – UBS has bought the remaining 40% stake in Brazilian multi-family office Consenso Investimentos and is reorganizing the business to double the number of investment advisors.

“The integration of Consenso is complete now, with a new technology platform, so we are ready to grow aggressively,” said Bruno Barino, co-chairman of UBS Consenso, a position he shares with Consenso founding partner Luiz Borges.

UBS bought 60% of Consenso in 2017 and no senior partner of the multi-family office has left the bank, said Barino, who is also global co-head of wealth management at UBS for Brazil. In addition to Borges, other senior partners at Consenso remained with the bank, such as, for example, Heinz Gruber, Maria Alice Gouvêa, Daniel Auerbach and Valéria Milani.

UBS now plans to hire 25 investment advisors in about a year, Barino said.

Hiring private banking executives in Brazil’s competitive environment will be a challenge. The wealth management business is growing, as low interest rates force wealthy clients to seek investment advice to try to get higher returns. Executives are leaving longstanding careers at well-known houses and founding their own wealth management firms in order to become full partners and receive dividends without deferrals and with tax advantages.

A group of Credit Suisse executives left the bank last year and founded Wealth High Governance, a new wealth manager with a 49.9% stake in XP. Luiz Severiano Ribeiro, head of global private banking at Itaú Unibanco, and Carlos Albertotti, head of private banking sales in Brazil, left the Brazilian bank last month to set up their own company.

The Consenso acquisition in 2017 helped triple UBS’s assets under management in the country to R$30 billion, the bank said at the time. UBS declined to provide today’s figures. UBS Consenso’s focus is on Brazilian clients with more than R$50 million and maintains an open platform strategy.

UBS is also evaluating the possibility of offering its brokerage services to private banking clients so that they can trade stocks and futures directly, Barino said. UBS has one of the largest brokerage houses in Brazil and currently only serves professional investors.

The Consenso acquisition “was a great success because of the significant client retention and we were able to maintain a true wealth management boutique within UBS,” Barino said.

Source: Infomoney