Jefferies brings on entirely new team for its LatAm reach
Jefferies is expanding in the New World.
That might be a slight exaggeration – the bank was founded in Los Angeles, and it’s still headquartered in the USA – but it’s just brought on an entire external team, in London, the US, Spain, and Portugal to launch its Latin American offerings later this summer (in August, specifically).
Nau Securities, the boutique in question, was founded in 2010. Calling itself a “research-led firm”, it specializes in companies listed on the Brazilian stock exchange, as well as other Latin American exchanges.
A number of researchers have been added to Jefferies’ repertoire as part of the move, forming the nucleus for the bank’s future ambitions in Latin America.
One of them is John Nelson Ferreira, Jefferies’ new head of Latin American equities, and Nau’s former CEO. Before co-founding Nau in 2010, Ferreira was an MD at UBS in London, and held a variety of global roles, including as the bank’s head of European equities sales and head of international equity sales for the US.
Pedro Baptista, Nau’s other co-founder, is also joining Jefferies as an MD, as is Íñigo Vega. Baptista covers consumer staples and discretionary sectors, as well as holding companies and conglomerates. Vega, meanwhile, has covered banks and fintechs for Nau Securities.
Also joining as an MD, and working in Latin America equity research, is Alejandro Demichelis. Demichelis joined Nau in 2019, from boutique bank Hannam & Partners, where he was a director – but was an MD at both BofA and BNP Paribas earlier in his career, specializing in oil & gas equity research.
There’s also Alex Wright, who joined Nau in 2015, having spent 19 years at UBS, most recently as an executive director and head of emerging markets telecoms research. An investment analyst at Nau, he’s now an SVP in Jefferies’ Latin America research team.
Meanwhile, joining the Latin American equity sales team is Marilyn Macdonald. Macdonald has been a Latin America specialist throughout her career, having worked at Credicorp Capital (a Peruvian bank) as chief executive for Latin America equities in Europe for 14 years before joining Nau. She was at Santander for eight years as head of Latin America equities sales in Europe before that, based in London. She will be an executive director at Jefferies.
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