Bruno Fontana, a former managing director at Credit Suisse, and Roberto Bruno, who was a vice president at the Swiss bank, will cover financial sponsors, according to Leonardo Cabral, head of investment banking at Santander’s Brazilian unit.
Santander, Banco Safra SA and other major lenders are jumping at the chance to bring on top executives from Credit Suisse after its emergency takeover by UBS Group AG earlier this year. UBS acquired the company in June in a 3.5 billion-franc rescue brokered by the Swiss government. Cabral oversees about 60 bankers handling M&A advisory and equity capital-market deals. Santander ranks third in investment-banking fee revenue for Brazil for the first half of the year, up from ninth in the first six months of 2022, according to London-based research firm Dealogic. It ranks fifth on Brazil’s equity-underwriting league tables so far this year, and is also No. 5 for local bond underwriting, data compiled by Bloomberg show.