Wealth manager Julius Baer recently recruited Sylvio Castro – formerly CIO of international wealth management Brazil at Credit Suisse – to head up the client management team in that country.
He is one of the founding partners of Grimper Capital, which was set up in January 2021 after a wave of departures from Credit Suisse.
Several of Castro’s Grimper colleagues, including André Szasz and João Freitas, will also join Julius Baer’s 250-strong team in São Paulo. According to Castro, he was approached by multiple private banks over the past six months as the war for talent in Brazil’s private-banking industry heated up.
He tells Euromoney that Julius Baer was ultimately the best fit for the team – and its clients – and that life as an independent asset manager had proven to be surprisingly tough.
“There has been a big shift in the [asset management] industry in recent years,” says Castro. “Until very recently, Brazilian investors were heavily concentrated in domestic bets – and that means the nature of the business is limited in size.
