With assets reaching US$ 93.283 billion (201.261 billion reais) Itaú has become Brazil's number one private bank losing only to Banco do Brasil, which has  US$ 129.979 billion (281.615 billion reais) in assets.

A Brazilian Central Bank survey released, yesterday, December 4, revealed the new ranking based in data from the end of September.

For decades Bradesco had been the incontestable heavyweight champion among Brazilian banks.

Bradesco, with US$ 90.7017 (195.680 billion reais) in assets has now been left behind together with Caixa Econômica Federal (Federal Savings Bank) whose funds sum US$ 92.314 (199.212 billion reais).

Until June, the Banco do Brasil came in first, followed by Caixa Econômica, Bradesco and then Itaú. The decisive factor in this jump was Itaú's acquisition of BankBoston's Brazilian operations. Announced in early May, the purchase was only concluded in August.

The bank of the Setúbal family (patriarch Olavo Setúbal, 83, is the active chairman and son Roberto Egydio Setúbal is the CEO) was created in 1945 as Banco Central de Crédito, which changed its name later to Banco Federal de Crédito.

The bank started in downtown São Paulo, on January 2. One year later it had added two branches (in Campinas and São João da Boa Vista in the interior of São Paulo) and counted on a staff of 22. This number has now risen to over 50,000.

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written by Stephen, December 05, 2006

Over 50,000 employees and the service is still horrible! Ask a manager for assistance and even they don't know all the product the bank offers.

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written by Rick, December 05, 2006

"Assets" may be open to interpretation and market vagaries (Bill Gates is worth 45 billion, no, this year 52 billion; no, 49...")
Whereas number and location of bank agencies is also a factor and easier to pin down.

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Heavyweight...in Brazil.....
written by ch.c., December 06, 2006

but such a small bank overall Internationally !

And US$ 93 billions of assets, after the merger, with 50'000 employees, just show how
inneficient the bank is on the "assets per employee" metric, the bank is !

And to Rick, sorry but "assets" are not open to interpretation as you may suggest !
It is a metric of assets minus liabilities = net worth, metric that is precisely disclosed in all annual/quarterly financial reports !
While the number of agencies is worthless, since you may have thousands of small agencies in small villages and large agencies in large cities !

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