If the São Paulo banking community used once not to look outside the city limits for business, it does now. Murilo Kammer travels the length and breadth of Brazil drumming up corporate finance business for Unibanco and wherever he goes he finds a trail of calling cards. Some are from international houses such as Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse First Boston.
"I tell clients to ask the guys from international houses two questions: 'Which of the deals credited did you do yourself?' and 'Will I ever see your boss?'," says Kammer, emphasizing the more intimate service he offers.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s Unibanco, one of Brazil's largest private banks, was a big player in the Brazilian capital markets but then it made financial sense to go in other directions and business dropped off. Now the wholesale part of the bank wants to offer a full service and corporate finance is being rebuilt - under Kammer.
Family business
M&A is important work in Brazil with family firms selling out. Usually when one partner dies or has by-pass surgery, reality dawns that the future needs preparing for, says Kammer.