The Strategic Advantage of Abu Dhabi - An International Bankers' Perspective

[Music] good afternoon uh thank you adgm for inviting me to talk about uh the relationship between uh Brazil and Latin America to Abu Dhabi and GCC we have an interesting experience around that and it's always a pleasure being here among friends in Abu Dhabi to talk about the potential of uh of this experience uh I I'm chairman of btg the the largest independent asset manager in Investment Bank in Latin America it's h we manage about $300 billion dollar in in assets part of that wealth management part of that Asset Management uh and uh our key job description is provide Global Investors with good good advice for Latin America opportunities and provide Latin America clients with uh Global opportunities and in this sense our relationship with Abu Dhabi started in 2010 uh where we promoted a$2 billion private placement at btg level and it was led by three Global Sovereign wealth funds and uh at this time was the first investment of a sovereign wealth Fund in Latin America and one of the First Investments of a sovereign wealth fund uh in an Emerging Market even though most of them come from the the Emerging Market world but it was uh not frequent at that time Sovereign wealth funds investing in other emoi markets so this was uh uh one of the first and led by three Sovereign we funds including one from Abu Dhabi adic uh that invest $200 million at that time at btg stock two years later btg became a public company successfully and uh the investment was uh a big success for Abu Dhabi and of course for us at btg but a more important that this investment is the beginning of the relationship um that we uh uh try to move always to the next stage uh and try to promote between Brazil and Latin America to Abu Dhabi and uh uh the GCC countries and from there we have been managing money from the region but at then the the relationship evolves to another level of uh uh of business which is basically advising companies based on GCC countries including in Abu Dhabi on how to do business in Latin America and it happened in different sectors in agriculture energy mining uh infrastructure so a lot of companies of this region becoming global companies or Global Investors and more recently another sort of uh of uh of advice came up to our rather which is uh something that we didn't expect very much but a lot of Brazilian and Latin America companies being advised about how to navigate in Abu Dhabi and other GCC countries uh including a lot of FDI from Laton to these regions and the reason for that is H the stability we can see the Falcon economy around us here it's uh stability stability privilege uh logistic position um and uh and uh of course abundance of capital A lot of of uh promotion uh initiatives uh and uh these relationship has been increasing uh year after year I would say month after month uh this week a big delegation of Brazilian business people and uh business author including president Lula will be flying around the region and including the presence of course in the cop uh in a few days so it's our experience at btg has been uh quite remarkable uh around the integration of these two reasons but I would say that uh the integration of these two reasons probably beyond the specific opportunities in the different sectors that I listed here it's part of something bigger uh something related to a more integrated Global self uh that is coming and that is happening uh as we move month after month in different kinds of forums no matter if it's bricks or G20 or the expanded bricks or these bilateral uh uh meetings or cop this discussions but the relevance of of global South uh became remarkable and undeniable so sometimes we we forget the numbers but in the next the next two billion people in the planet 98% will come from the global South uh in 10 years time most of the global FDI more than 80% will be at the global South most of energy consumption will be at the Global Soft most of the clean energy Matrix will be at the Global Soft so uh these numbers just push us uh uh to the idea of the amazing opportunities that we can have together invest in our own regions co-investing between our regions and especially here in Abu Dhabi where we always found a very familiar and welcome space for us it's a a a a very important region and especially a remarkable place for opportunities for us and for our clients and I expect to continue to move in this direction and to promote a more a fair uh a more fair Global societ especially for those countries that need more okay again thank you very much uh uh for being here it's a pleasure talking to good partners in Abu davia thank you