Bank of America Merrill Lynch; Yutong Yuan/Business Insider
Bank of America's markets leaders added a key player for their Latin America push.
- Bank of America is angling to grab a larger share of Latin America's sales and trading revenue, and a new key hire will help with that mission.
- In an internal memo sent last week, BofA announced the hiring Carlos Fernandez-Aller, a Goldman partner who served as the Americas head of global currencies in addition to overseeing equities and fixed-income trading for the Latin America region.
- Fernandez-Aller will join the firm as cohead of the foreign exchange business, but he'll also bolster Bank of America's ambitions in Latin America.
- While some banks have retreated amid turmoil and a shrinking pool of revenue in the region, Bank of America is angling to grab market share.
- BofA sees an opportunity to add several hundred million in markets revenues in Latin America, sources say, and Fernandez-Aller will aid in that mission.
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Bank of America has set its sights on winning hundreds of millions in trading revenues in Latin America, and last week poached a senior trading exec from Goldman Sachs who will play a key role in orchestrating the push.
Carlos Fernandez-Aller, a Goldman partner who served as the Americas head of global currencies in addition to overseeing equities and fixed-income trading for the Latin America region, has resigned from the investment bank and is joining Bank of America, Business Insider reported last week.
Fernandez-Aller will join the firm as cohead of the foreign-exchange business alongside Denis Manelski, who is moving to London and assuming oversight of EMEA FICC trading as well, according to the internal memo announcing the moves.
In addition to having a new star exec to help run a large global trading business - BofA has consistently ranked in the 4th to 6th range in FX trading on league tables put out by Coalition, the Wall Street data and consulting firm - the appointment of Fernandez-Aller will bolster Bank of America's ambitions in Latin America.
Gaining trading market share in Latin America is a priority for COO and investment banking boss Tom Montag, who attended a company offsite in Sao Paolo in late 2019 to help conduct strategic planning and budgeting for the region, according to sources familiar with the matter.
A Bank of America spokesman declined to comment.
A $500 million opportunity
Turmoil has afflicted some of Latin America's largest economies in recent years. Brazil has sputtered amid wide-ranging corruption scandal, Venezuela has been mired in upheaval and a humanitarian crisis under President Nicolas Maduro, yet another economic crisis began to unfold in Argentina last year amid ballooning debt and a spiraling currency, and Chile has been racked with protests and widespread unrest since October.
Among other impacts, investment banking trading revenues have contracted.
The total sales and trading revenue pool across Latin America is about $4 billion, down 7% from 2018 and roughly 15% over the past five years, according to Coalition.
Mirroring broader investment-banking trends, Coalition found that some European firms have dealt with the headwinds by retrenching from parts of the region and deploying resources elsewhere.
But Bank of America sees an opening to steal market share, and it has its sights set on adding several hundred million in incremental revenues - one source tabbed the opportunity at as much as $500 million.
The firm is ranked third in fixed-income, currencies, and commodities trading revenues globally and fourth in equities, according to publicly reported earnings results.
At Goldman, Fernandez-Aller, 45, was considered part of the future and had recently assumed greater responsibility, according to Goldman insiders.
After graduating from ICADE Business School in Madrid, where he was born, Fernandez-Aller started out at Goldman Sachs in London in the late 1990s and has steadily ascended the credit-trading ranks.
The Goldman lifer was promoted to managing director in 2006 and made partner in 2014. Last year, he was given a co-leadership role overseeing equities trading for Latin America, in addition to his role as head of FICC trading for the region, Bloomberg reported.
While Goldman's securities division has seen a wave of senior departures, Fernandez-Aller was presented in business planning as part of a small cohort of partners that represented the next generation of the sales and trading operation.
Instead, he'll play a crucial role going forward in Bank of America's markets division - providing additional ammo in FX trading as Manelski heads to Europe, while also using his extensive experience to aid the company's ambitions for Latin America.
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