By Megan Murphy
Financial Times

October 2, 2011 – Roger Jenkins, the high-profile former Barclays executive, has joined BTG Pactual as a managing partner as Brazil’s largest independent investment bank and asset manager gears up its ambitious expansion plans.

Mr Jenkins, a star banker best known for orchestrating a £7bn fundraising for Barclays from Middle East investors at the height of the financial crisis, brings with him deep ties to the sovereign wealth funds that are now looking to tap into Latin American growth.

He will sit on the bank’s global management and investment committees, and will be charged with identifying investment opportunities as well as raising money from investors.

BTG closed a $1.6bn private equity fund in late June, the third-largest private-equity fundraising effort ever in Latin America, in a bet that Brazil’s consumer and investment boom will continue.

“This is an entrepreneurial partnership and Roger is an entrepreneur,” Huw Jenkins, the former UBS investment banking chief who joined BTG last year, told the Financial Times.

Roger Jenkins’ was reported to be Barclays highest-paid banker on a package of more than £40m when he left in 2009 to set up the corporate finance boutique, Elkstone Capital.

Elkstone, which was looking at investing in distressed banking and property assets in Ireland as well as international deals, including in Brazil, has since been wound up, and a handful of its employees have followed Mr Jenkins to BTG Pactual.

BTG, by contrast, has grown rapidly on the back of Brazil’s vibrant capital markets and mergers and acquisitions activity since it was bought out of UBS for $2.45bn in 2009. The bank was valued at about $10bn in a deal in December when a group of investors including three sovereign wealth funds – Singapore’s GIC, China’s CIC and the Abu Dhabi Investment Council – bought an 18.7 per cent stake.

André Esteves, BTG’s chief executive, last month told the FT that he was looking to hold an initial public offering as early as next year.

Fundraising for Latin American private equity and venture capital is expected to hit a record $10bn in 2012, according to figures released this month by the Latin American Venture Capital Association. BTG is targeting opportunities in infrastructure, agriculture and natural resources.

Mr Jenkins, who moved to California after leaving Barclays, will remain based in Los Angeles while travelling frequently.

“People see opportunities to invest in Latin America and are willing to deploy risk capital,” Mr Jenkins said. “That makes it interesting.”