Jose Franco Morais - Brazil’s Treasury Jose Franco Morais manages Brazil’s US$49bn external debt. He has masterminded more than US$10bn worth of buybacks in secondary, a series of standalone issues and reopenings in dollars and Reais and liability management transactions, helping Brazil mature and evolve into a masterful issuer. Morais has a doctorate in economics at the University of Brasilia. Denise Moura - Banco Bradesco BBI Denise Moura is head of Bradesco’s investment bank and has played a

Brazil is on the cusp of becoming an investment grade credit. The sovereign has never looked better and its corporates never healthier. Many enjoy cash-rich positions and a few are able to cross the seas and engage in major acquisitions and vie among the world’s biggest players in sectors such as mining and commodities. Spreads are gradually tightening again but remain wide to all-time records. Healthy new issue premiums are the order of the day while structures have changed locally as investors

IFR: We have talked about how a drop in interest rates will change everything. Certainly we are getting there. But there also exists a mechanism that I believe can change everything and that is the 15% withholding tax on foreign investors looking to invest in debentures locally. The removal of such a tax truly helped Brazil on its local curve and a level playing field is possible. Everyone is talking about this change in tax treatment and that it could be extended to the debenture market which t

IFR: We didn’t include the CVM for the reason that the whole roundtable risked being solely focused on complaints about the regulator. But we will get them in next time. Gerald Massenet (Calyon): Regarding the debentures market, there is one important problem: new projects arising from infrastructure. For example, you cannot fund tollroad projects in dollars. It is complicated and not just because of the FX risk, there is also the problem of duration. You cannot finance such a transaction within

IFR: What is the outlook for Brazilian capital markets, both local and international, given the current volatility backdrop? Denise Moura (Banco Bradesco BBI): We have emerged from a period of heavy insecurity on the investor side. Thinking of demand and trying to see what would happen internationally, investors restrained themselves from buying local paper. Now, we can already begin to see interest returning. So I believe that the worst for the capital markets and local debt market has passed.