Resilience. Solidity. Business as usual. These are the buzzwords around Brazilian financial markets at the moment, and private equity is no exception.

“This crisis has really demonstrated the new resilience of Brazil’s economy,” says Antonio Bonchristiano, executive partner at GP Investimentos, the major domestically run and publicly listed private equity fund. “We are now in a very different scenario from the post-crisis situation at the start of the decade, when three to four years of capital drought led to many distressed opportunities. Yes, deals were put on hold [earlier this year] and there has been a shortage of funding, but now we’re getting back to business almost as if nothing happened.”

The industry is riding the general wave of renewed confidence in the economy, and in the Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva government’s economic management. Brazil’s GDP is likely to have contracted over 2009 by 0.7%, but will be on target for 3.5% growth in 2010, according to October International Monetary Fund figures. Latin America as a whole is on the path to recovery: the IMF expects 2.9% regional growth next year after a 2.5% contraction this year. But Brazil is powering ahead, lacking as it does the drag effect of extreme exposure to the US market felt by Mexico...

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