Welcoming World Cup Fans and Alternative Assets
By LILLIAN RIZZO
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
Brazil is welcoming thousands of spectators for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and data provider Preqin is getting in the spirit by highlighting the host country’s receptiveness to so-called alternative assets, including private equity, infrastructure and hedge funds.
In this football themed handout, Preqin dispenses stats on the number of domestic institutional investors that pursue such assets, how many funds are being raised to invest in the country and the number of deals struck in 2013, among others.
Institutional investors, including pension funds and college endowments, flooded capital into Brazil and other emerging markets after the financial crisis seeking to capture some of the growth from those regions and to diversify away from holdings in the U.S. and Western Europe.
Investment slowed in recent years as the influx of capital drove up asset prices, but now contrarian investors are taking a look as Brazil faces slowing growth and currency fluctuations. Bain Capital, for example, struck its first ever deal in the country in March.
Fundraising for private equity investments in Brazil is expected to increase this year as large shops including Gavea Investimentos and Patria Investimentos return to the trail. Patria, which is partially owned by Blackstone Group, has already gathered roughly half of the $1.5 billion it set out to raise, LBO Wire reported earlier this week.
They’re hardly alone. According to Preqin’s data, some 61 Brazil focused funds are currently in the market.
Brazil has also continued to attract the lion’s share of private equity money in Latin America. In 2012 alone, 43% of the aggregate capital raised by Latin America-focused funds was for vehicles focused on Brazil, according to another Preqin report.
The country also took home 68% of the capital invested last year and 63% of the total deals in Latin America, according to data from the Latin American Private Equity & Venture Capital Association.
Now the only question is whether Brazil will continue to surpass its neighboring Latin American countries in both alternative asset investments, and the World Cup.
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