Miami Attracts Multifamily Office Hunting for Brazil’s Richest

(Bloomberg) -- A Brazilian multifamily office is planning to open an outlet in Miami, but the coronavirus pandemic means the expansion will have to wait until next year.

Carpa Patrimonial, which has 4 billion reais ($715 million) in wealth under management, intends to make the move as soon as restrictions related to the pandemic ease, according to partner Marcelo Fleury.

The firm, based in Rio de Janeiro, has infrastructure in place to handle as much as 20 billion reais from high-net-worth individuals, and is hoping to reach that figure in five to 10 years, Chief Executive Officer Ian Dubugras said in a video interview. Carpa hired Fleury in February to help with its growth plans, mainly in Sao Paulo, where the firm also has an office. The Miami expansion will be a key part of the strategy.

“It makes more sense to open an office there than in another state in Brazil, because in Miami you have a larger concentration of rich Brazilians in a smaller area,” said Dubugras, Bank of America Corp.’s former CEO for Brazil. “Brazilians living in Miami have houses there, other real estate properties, motorboats, cars, workers, and also need to keep buying and selling dollars.”

Carpa, which has 40 employees, offers rich clients help with multiple services beyond investment advice and wealth management, including paying employees and bills, managing real estate construction, and assisting with maintaining boats, planes and cars. It also has a partnership with Nevastar Finance, a multifamily office based in London that manages the liquid assets of Carpa’s clients abroad.

IPO Wealth

Carpa was created in 2015 by partners including Chief Investment Officer Celso Colombo Neto. He’s the son of the founder of cracker maker Industria de Produtos Alimenticios Piraque SA, which was sold in 2018 for 1.55 billion reais to M Dias Branco SA. The multifamily office focuses on clients with at least 10 million reais in liquid assets.

Brazil’s private banking industry had 1.38 trillion reais in assets under management as of August, 5.3% more than in December, according to Anbima, the nation’s capital-markets association. Rich entrepreneurs are getting richer in the wake of a flood of initial public equity offerings. IPOs total 23.6 billion reais this year, more than double the amount in same period of 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

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