10/30/2008 14h25
German foundations aim at Brazil in the after-crisis period
Valor Econômico - 10/30/2008
Brazil entered, for the first time, the route of a group of foreign investors, clients of the HSBC bank. In the first visit to the country, nearly two weeks ago, representatives of German retirement funds and banks had the opportunity of knowing first hand the local economy and the stock market. "We were bored to go to Asia", jokes the director of the institutional area of the HSBC Global Asset Management in Germany, Markus Ackermann, who accompanied the group during the trip. At first sight, Brazil impressed, but the investors still have some resistance to bet their cards on a country located in a region marked by a past of moratorium and the populism phenomenon. Ackerman says that the idea of organizing the trip came from the strong interest of investors to break up other emerging markets, besides Asia. "As the HSBC has an important presence in Brazil, we thought that it would be worth taking a test with the trip with a small group (four investors and two executives from the German bank)", he said. The visit lasted only four days, three of them spent in the São Paulo capital and one in the city of Ribeirão Preto. The preference for Asia in these last years is due to the strong economic growth of countries like China and India, affirmed Andreas Bürguer, director of the retirement funds of the European Patent Organization (EPO), a public international entity that works in the granting of patents in Europe. In Latin America, compares the executive, the expansion varies between 4% and 5% per year, like the domestic saving account, and it is quite small in comparison with the Asian one. Besides this, he mentions the populism phenomenon as an obstacle for investments in the region and also in Brazil. But Brazil has its advantages, starting with the lower leverage of the economy and a less speculating financial market, emphasizes Bürguer. And he continues: "the Brazilian companies are more used to volatile markets and lack of external lines of financing". For him, the country is more protected of a prices correction. "In case there is a reduction in the expectation of return over its own capital, it will be less dramatic in Brazil, even because the companies have already a higher capital cost."
