How Did Andre Esteves Do It?

Is it because Pactual was still an undeveloped firm or because it was in an emerging market and the structure is different or is it because of his pure ability, etc. It is insanely impressive how Esteves went from regular intern to majority shareholder of an investment bank in under 15 years. Does anyone have an explanation? As well as how he was able to pull of the deal he did with UBS?

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While he did rise extremely fast at Pactual, that wasn't uncommon. What really catapulted him was the UBS deal. Pactual lost a lot of key talent after UBS acquired it. A big part of what drew talent to Pactual (the extremely dynamic environment with insane opportunity for upward mobility) "died" under a large global organization like UBS. They quickly saw the writing on the wall, which allowed Esteves and his partners to buy it back for pennies on the dollar. After that it was essentially his bank. 

Most here probably know this but its rumored that the name "BTG" (which they adopted after buying Pactual back from UBS) stands for Back to the Game, which would be amazing if true. 

 
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