Institutional Investor Ranks Brazil's Top 20 Money Managers

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - July 8, 2009) - Low exposures to equities helped firms in the Brazil 20, Institutional Investor's second annual ranking of the nation's biggest asset managers, avoid the brunt of last year's 41 percent stock market plunge.

At BB Gestão de Recursos, which repeats in first place among Brazil's top 20 money managers, stocks account for only $19.5 billion of the firm's $105.2 billion in total assets under management. That total is down 15.5 percent from one year earlier, in dollar terms; in local currency terms BB Gestão de Recursos and several other firms saw their assets under management increase in 2008. The real fell 24.5 percent against the dollar last year.

Caixa Econômica Federal, which rises one spot to take second place, saw its assets under management slip 12.4 percent in 2008, to $76.3 billion; of that total, only $2.8 billion is in equities. Banco Itaú, which merged with Unibanco Holdings and Unibanco-União de BancosBrasileiros earlier this year, slips one rung to third place, with $73 billion in assets as of year-end 2008 (25.9 percent less than a year earlier), $7.5 billion of which is in equities. Total assets of the Brazil 20 fell just 21 percent last year.

To compile the 2009 survey, Institutional Investor used data from questionnaires filled out by the institutions themselves to identify Brazil's top 20 fund managers by assets.

Complete results of the survey of Brazil's 20 biggest money managers can be found on our web site, www.iimagazine.com.

For more information about these rankings, please contact Jane Kenney at jkenney@iiresearchgroup.com or (212) 224-3122.

Contact Information: Contact: Jane Kenney jkenney@iiresearchgroup.com (212) 224-3122