MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina's Patagonia bank teams with Swiss UBS and Banco do Brasil to have a global platform

It will provide clients of UBS BB services in Argentina, while Patagonia’s customers get access to international investor and global markets

UBS BB Investment Bank, a joint venture between UBS Group AG and Banco do Brasil SA for South America, reached a collaboration agreement with Argentina’s Banco Patagonia SA.

The deal includes investment-banking businesses such as merger-and-acquisition advising and debt and equity trading and underwriting, according to the companies. It will provide clients of UBS BB services in Argentina, while Patagonia’s customers get access to international investors, foreign corporates and global markets.

“We are among the five biggest in Argentina local markets, and now we aim to become No. 1 or 2,” Banco Patagonia President Joao Pecego said in an interview.

The Buenos Aires-based bank is Argentina’s seventh-biggest by assets, with 1.2 million clients and a presence in every state. The company, which is controlled by Banco do Brasil, has an expertise in local credit securitizations, known as fideicomisos, Pecego said. It’s handled those transactions for local governments as well as companies including MercadoLibre.

“But we lack a global platform, which UBS BB is providing us,” Pecego said. The commercial agreement could bring services to more than 42,000 midsize to large companies that are already clients of Patagonia, Pecego said.

UBS has been in Argentina for about 50 years, with a focus on cross-border transactions, and now sees an opportunity to gain more local corporate clients and offer services using Patagonia’s platform and brokerage, said Enrique Vivot, UBS BB’s head of Southern Cone global banking and chairman for Argentina.

UBS has participated in several bond restructurings in Argentina since the government held its own debt talks in 2020. It’s worked as an adviser for bondholders during the federal government’s restructuring, as well as for provinces and companies such as Aeropuertos Argentina 2000. Those deals gained more traction last year than traditional equity and debt issuance as pandemic-related volatility and exchange-rate controls added to the previous year’s currency rout.

UBS BB was launched in October to provide investment banking in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Paraguay and Uruguay, and institutional-securities brokerage services in Brazil. The agreement between the Sao Paulo-based joint venture and Patagonia is similar to one UBS Securities signed with Colombia-based boutique investment bank Inverlink in September.