São Paulo — The Brazilian business community has clear priorities: investments in the stock market, the environmental and sustainability agenda and the tone to be set by the presidential elections in October. These were the topics discussed during the first Bloomberg Línea Summit, held by Bloomberg Línea to celebrate its first anniversary.
The summit in São Paulo this week was attended by business personalities from the most influential companies in Brazil and Latin America, who heard a message from Bloomberg LP’s CEO, Mike Bloomberg on the relationship between the media and data company he founded and the region’s fastest growing digital contents platform.
The summit brought the debate to São Paulo on the country’s current political scenario, the investment landscape in the region, Brazil’s upcoming presidential elections, investment opportunities in environmental, social and governance (ESG), and a new era for startups and venture capital.
Brazil’s elections
The panel on ‘Investments in Brazil and Latin America in the next five years” saw the participation of Karina Saade, head of BlackRock in Brazil; Silvio Cascione, director of Eurasia in Brazil, and Marcus Vinicius Gonçalves, president of Franklin Templeton in Brazil, and focused on the discussion of the volatility surrounding the October 2 elections.
Silvio Cascione said that Brazil’s elections will continue to bring uncertainty and volatility even after the result, and that there is a possibility of an incident similar to that which occurred in Washington on January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.
“We are not worried about the result of the elections, but there may be scares and volatility in this period. We are still concerned about an incident similar to the one in the US,” Cascione said.
Cascione said he envisages former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva having an advantage over President Jair Bolsonaro in a possible second round.
According to Marcus Vinicius Gonçalves, Brazil requires greater portfolio diversification. “We will have to look at alternative investment forms to the traditional market. Diversification tends to be even more important. In terms of portfolio analysis, we must look at the scenario from now on”, he said.
For her part, BlackRock’s Saade said it is impossible to build a portfolio that is immune to volatility, as economic cycles do not allow for that, adding that the best way would be to build a portfolio with a low number of investments linked to inflation, and focused on income.
Sustainable Agriculture & ESG
Marcela Rocha, executive director of corporate affairs and sustainability at JBS, spoke of the multinational’s goals, where it plans to invest eight billion reais ($1.52 billion) over the next five years, “mainly in production capacity expansion, besides having the ambition of being net zero by 2040″.
“We believe in sustainability that brings a return to the company,” she said.
Women and ESG leaders discussed the opportunities for sustainable investments. Suelma Rosa, head of reputation for Brazil and Latin America at Unilever, talked about how the company places sustainability as its main business objective.
For her part, Ana Buchaim, executive director of people, marketing, communication, sustainability, and social investment at B3, highlighted the growth of green bonds on the stock index.
“Today, we have 37 billion reais ($7 billion) registered on the B3 platform, and by 2030 we will have 700 billion reais ($133.4 billion) invested in sustainable agriculture.”
Brandon Tapper, senior vice president and global head of data at Nasdaq, commented on how the US exchange has been reaching out to Brazilian companies, especially in offering data.
“For the past three years, we’ve been using data to help investor institutions, brokers, fintechs and retail,” he said, adding that several large companies already use its resources, such as Avenue and Microsoft, among others.
Revival of IPOs
During the panel that brought together the Brazilian unicorn Gupy and two prominent figures in the financial markets, Rodrigo Catunda, managing director and co-head of Brazil at General Atlantic, one of the largest investment funds in the world, expressed his optimism regarding Brazil’s recovery.
“Everything is a cycle, and several companies are reinventing themselves,” he said. “Entrepreneurs need to have the capacity to define strategies and communicate effectively, to be a leader and create strong teams, to have resilience and ambition”.
Mariana Dias, CEO and co-founder of the unicorn Gupy, highlighted the company’s history that was born in a crisis in 2015.
“Something we learned is that it’s summer and winter all the same time in Brazil. Enjoying the crisis is important to reinvent the business and strengthen it.”
And Pedro Juliano, head of investment banking at JP Morgan in Brazil, believes that falling inflation levels next year could revive primary and secondary IPO offerings in Brazil as early as January.
Bloomberg Línea growing digital footprint
The Sao Paulo summit marked the first anniversary for Bloomberg Línea. With more than 70 journalist throughout the Americas, the digital multiplatform reaches now more than 3 million unique visitors monthly. For Michael Bloomberg, this is just one of the many achievements to note.
“It has been an impressive year. Launching in 16 markets in Latin America and producing more than 150 high-quality news stories every day. We are attracting millions of monthly readers. In addition, we are publishing the region’s leading business and finance podcast. Our reports and analysis are excellent for transparency and economic growth throughout Latin America,” Bloomberg said in his address.
In turn, León Falic, CEO of Falic Media --which partners with Bloomberg Media in this initiative-- said the editorial push behind the brand places Bloomberg Línea among the leading content producers in business, finance, and economy in the region.
Falic said Bloomberg Línea has a huge potential to expand region wise, stressing that so far the site averages more than 3 million visitors per month and its digital products reach more than 23 million.
The platform has also launched 2 webseries, such as ‘Casa de Negócio’, 5 podcasts -- including the flagship La Estrategia del Dia, which has been the #1 Business news podcast in charts daily in several markets in the Americas -- and 11 newsletters.
Regarding Bloomberg Línea Summit in Sao Paulo, Falic said: “It is very satisfying to celebrate this first year bringing to Brazil important panels with themes that involve relevant sectors. Brazil is a major economic player in the region.”
A summit set a high bar
The summit was held Wednesday (14) at the recently opened Rosewood Hotel in São Paulo, with C-level executives attendees from companies such as XP, Visa, C6 Bank, Visa, RedHat, McDonald’s, MercadoLibre, BTG Pactual, Bradesco, Itaú, PagSeguro, and Unilever, among others, to debate the issues moving the Latin American economy.
“We are very proud of Bloomberg Línea’s achievements in this first year of activity. We want to continue this journey as a reference to bring experts and debate the main topics together, as we did in this event. The platform has a tremendous responsibility, as our audience keeps growing- there are already more than 150,000 subscribers to our sites in just one year - and we are considering opening events for our users in 2023″, Kaio Philipe, COO of Bloomberg Línea, said.
The event was sponsored by JBS and Nasdaq.
Click here, for more information about the Bloomberg Línea Summit (in Portuguese),