BNDES to spend $250.8 billion 2013-16; also seeks to encourage private capital inputs.

If Petrobras is considering an equity transaction in 2014, the implosion of Eike Batista’s OGX group this year won’t be helpful for investors’ perceptions of the risk of Brazil’s oil exploration and production industry.

When Brazil’s national oil and gas champion raised $70 billion from a capital increase in 2010, it was trumpeted as a once-in-a-decade event. But as Petrobras nears its self-imposed leverage thresholds, its capital position looks compromised. A sharp cut to its rating or a return to the equity markets looks likely. So why is Brazil’s banking community so scared to discuss it?

Local banks like to see themselves as uniquely suited to offering cash management services to Brazilian companies. But the global banks are also getting up to speed on idiosyncratic client requirements and local regulation.

Brazil’s FX swap intervention is arming speculators for further attacks on the real

CRT was a natural candidate to open the project finance bond market in Brazil because the sponsors of Rodovias do Tietê are Atlantia Bertin Concessões (a 50/50 joint venture of Atlantia and Bertin), and Ascendi (a 60/40 joint venture of Mota-Engil and Banco Espírito Santo). They have experience of these structures in Europe.

Lack of reform momentum being challenged; Secular, long-term trend seen as favourable for EM

No support for Rodovias do Tietê issue; Rotas das Bandeirantes refinancing blocked.

Despite Roussef’s protestations, only structural reform will put Brazil back on a growth path.

It has been a horrible few months for emerging market (EM) currencies, with foreign exchange investors looking to exit a broad range of exposures from Brazil to Indonesia. However, a closer examination of the EM landscape reveals that among the detritus are currencies that look set to outperform.

Capital-hungry borrowers seeking to plug the huge infrastructure deficit in Latin America’s largest economy through international capital markets are hoping Eike Batista’s OGX group will avoid default.

Brazil’s recovery is being cut off at the knees by a set of economic challenges that have all come home to roost – from a depreciating currency and rising current-account deficit to structural problems, including an overdependence on credit-fuelled consumption.

Brazilian capital markets are showing signs of life again after a particularly torrid summer as industrial conglomerate Odebrecht priced a $1.7 billion nine-year bond. But investor wariness towards Latin America’s largest economy persists.

Wealthy Brazilians’ traditional dependence on positive real interest rates for investment returns has been undermined. Euromoney’s roundtable of private bankers discusses how wealth managers are developing new investment opportunities for their clients and how those clients are responding.

Bears bring a spotlight to Brazil’s ‘Chapter 11’

With sellers and buyers in LatAm equity issuance and M&A finding it difficult to agree on valuations, banks are hard pressed to get deals away.

Guaranteed purchases make ‘deal’s floor the ceiling as well’; Valuation expectations of sellers and buyers persistently diverge

US demand for LatAm investment expected to hold up; also developing vehicles for Brazilians investing abroad.

Bears thrive on accelerating inflation, weak growth and a falling real. But a positive, reforming response to protests might transform sentiment in Brazil.

A wave of protests over a wide range of political and economic grievances has rocked Brazil, despite the fruits of its decade-long commodity-driven growth having been more evenly shared than other producers. The macroeconomic consequences could be more severe than markets expect, as it heaps on the risk of fiscal laxity and reduces prospects for structural reform, say analysts.

The Brazilian real looks set to escape the sell-off sweeping across emerging market (EM) currencies after the country’s government scrapped the tax on overseas investments in domestic bonds.

Firm seen as ‘catalyst for consolidation’; Fierce competition driving down fees

Local banks outgun global leads; Brasil Plural the latest ECM contender

With Brazilian inflation now above the target rate, in mid-April the central bank announced a rise in interest rates for the first time since July 2011. But the move, in the face of stubborn and diffuse pressure (over 70% of the country’s inflation basket is now affected by inflation) was dovish – just a 25 basis point increase in the face of the market expectations of 50bp. The minutes from the central bank’s monetary policy committee meeting also showed that two of the eight members voted against any rise.

After a poor 2012, the central bank forecast growth of 4% for 2013; it has already cut this to 3.1%. International investors are going elsewhere in the region. With domestic investment falling, Brazil will do well even to hit that target.

Economy recovering; high-quality companies in pipeline.

Assertion that private funding is vital challenged but private skills might be essential.

Collateral damage from capital controls; Brazil’s policies criticized by neighbours.

Brazil’s consumption-led economy is starting to run aground.