Economic Stability: IPO fever signals confidence in Brazil

A Brazilian insurer’s market launch raised $5.7 billion.

RIO DE JANEIRO: A Brazilian insurer’s market launch Thursday raised $5.7 billion, the world’s biggest initial public offering this year and a sign of rising confidence in Latin America’s biggest economy.

The Initial Public Offering (IPO) of BB Seguridade, the insurance arm of state-owned Banco do Brasil, was also the biggest since September, when Japan Airlines raised $8.4 billion. For Brazil, it was the biggest IPO in the country since October 2009 when Spanish bank Santander raised the equivalent of $7 billion.

That, coupled with an anticipated $5.4 billion IPO by Brazil’s cement maker Votorantim Cimentos later this year, signal renewed confidence in the country’s economic prospects, analysts said.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 28^th, 2013.

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