Credit Suisse Wealth Veterans to Start Hedge Fund Firm in Brazil

(Bloomberg) -- Sylvio Castro, the former chief investment officer at Credit Suisse Group AG’s private banking unit in Brazil, will launch his own hedge fund firm after leaving the Swiss lender earlier this year, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Castro will be joined by two other Credit Suisse veterans, Andre Szasz and Joao Paulo Freitas, who also left the bank, the people said, declining to be named because a public announcement hasn’t been made. The trio plan to run a global total return fund and a long-biased equity product, the people said.

Castro, Szasz and Freitas declined to comment.

Brazil’s veteran traders are leaving behind decades-long careers in major lenders to set up their own hedge fund shops, as all-time low interest rates push investors to take on more risk. Local hedge funds have seen 81 billion reais ($14 billion) in net inflows year to date, near the 85 billion reais 2017 record.

Credit Suisse’s Brazilian wealth business has also seen a slew of departures after Marcello Chilov was named to lead the business in July. These include the former head of the division, Marco Aurelio Abrahao, who left with a team of about a dozen. Part of that group is setting up an independent wealth advisory shop that will have XP Inc. as a minority shareholder, according to a filing.

Castro’s new firm is unrelated to that venture and won’t have a wealth management business, the people familiar said. At Credit Suisse, he was replaced by Luciano Telo, who was XP’s chief investment officer for the wealth advisory business.

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