Hello monkeys,
Just wondering about opportunities for IBD in South America (specifically Brazil).
With such a large economy and fast economic growth (although it's been declining), what do you think the prospects are for Brazilian IBD in the years to come?
Any BBs with a good base in South America?
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The problem here is that the region never got past the "cyclical economy" (mainly tied to commodities) thing, so this affects IBD as well. There are opportunities here but obviously the market is much smaller when compared to more mature economies.
In Brazil a lot of the deals go to local players such as Itau BBA, BTG Pactual and Safra. JPM, CS and BofA are among the largest internationals here. Citi and Deutsche used to be big but scaled down the ops in the region, I am not sure how they rank now.
What about years to come though? Any chances that TMT or P&E would explode in this area?
In addition, I assume Portuguese/Spanish is essential to land an IBD job in Brazil? How's the paycheck though? I realize that it's definitely way, way lower than NYC or London, but hey, the cost of living isn't that expensive either so I guess it evens out?
Portuguese is essential, Spanish is useless other than it'll help you read Portuguese a little easier. Comp is less across the board and dependent on firm, but can be as much as 2x less at the junior levels. Rio and Sao Paulo fall between Chicago and NY for cost of living, so unfortunately it's not as lucrative an option as it is in the U.S.
Source - previously worked in Brazil IBD
Totally agree
Great answer! Do they take non-native speakers though?
Twice less is definitely a large difference. Well, what about the work hours? Are they as bad as NY?
It's a Banana Republic.
For non-Brazil ops, a friend of mine did an internship in Chile/Argentina and it was mostly local players. As such, connections go way further than in larger markets and, like said above, culture and language fit are key.
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