According to Leonardo Cabral, head of investment banking at Santander’s Brazilian division, financial sponsors will be covered by former Credit Suisse managing director Bruno Fontana and vice president Roberto Bruno.

Cabral is in charge of 60 bankers who handle M&A advising and equity capital-market transactions.

Following the divestment of the Copel utility in August, Cabral, who has a lengthy experience of managing divestments in the South American country, anticipates that other state governments in Brazil would sell their majority holdings in a number of businesses.

The executive worked for the government-owned development bank BNDES from 2019 to 2021, where he was in in charge of organising a sizable strategy for asset sales.

After Credit Suisse’s emergency purchase by UBS Group AG earlier this year, Santander, Banco Safra SA, and other significant lenders jumped at the chance to hire top executives from the acquired firm.

In June, UBS purchased the business as part of a 3.5bn Swiss franc ($3.9bn) rescue deal arranged by the Swiss government.

Bloomberg reports that Madrid-based Santander hired Marcella Recchia earlier this year to represent the consumer and retail industries in Brazil.

She was previously with Credit Suisse.

In August, within the framework of a larger restructuring of its US brokerage division, it hired Julia Cambiaghi, head of Latin America equity sales at Credit Suisse in New York.

As UBS moves forward with a global makeover, Credit Suisse is closing its cash equities sales business in Japan and has informed hedge funds and other institutional clients that it would no longer be accepting orders.

Most recently, a number of Credit Suisse employees are departing from Tokyo as part of the winding down in Japan process.