Expats lured by Brazil’s booming economy
It just made sense to be in South America’s economic heart, Jonathan Rosenthal reasoned, no matter that he had been working on Wall Street with some of the investment world’s most heady firms.The fact was, the United States was in a sustained slump and Europe was tanking, but there were promising opportunities in Brazil. So like a growing number of young, highly educated professionals, Rosenthal made the leap to Brazil’s Wall Street, Faria Lima Avenue, to start a hedge fund that has ridden the country’s economic boom.
Those arriving here clearly have an adventurous streak. But they also made their decision based on pragmatic considerations: Brazil is an emerging economic power whose economy has grown by 4.4 percent a year since 2004. It has also received about $200 billion in foreign direct investment in the past six years.
And despite the formidable red tape for foreign workers, this country of 194 million has an increasingly diverse economy with room for those in finance, engineering, Web design, petro-engineering and other highly technical professions.
“When you’re talking about skilled labor, there’s a huge lack of supply, so as a result if you have the courage to come down to Brazil, or you have the language skills, or you’re Brazilian American, it’s a no-brainer to come down here,” said Rosenthal, 31, who runs Newfoundland Capital Management with a Brazilian partner.
In New York, Rosenthal had a golden career. At 22 he joined Morgan Stanley, and he later worked for one of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Cub funds. But the culture of New York’s financial world can be stiff and closed, Rosenthal said, and he was attracted by the investment possibilities in Brazil and neighboring countries.
Here, Rosenthal said he runs into the executives of big firms at the gym, and he is a cab ride away from 80 percent of the firms on the Sao Paulo exchange. “Those interactions are priceless,” he said. “You don’t get that in New York.”
And then there is the music, the spicy cuisine of northeastern Brazil and the ingenious soccer of the nearby team in Santos, which has had to replace Rosenthal’s beloved New York Jets.
