Investigation into Reputational and Governance Risk at a Brazilian Asset Manager

Client objective
An international client required a defensible assessment of reputational, governance, and political-exposure risk linked to prominent Brazilian asset managers. Public records and media coverage were fragmented and contradictory. The client needed ground-truth intelligence to support investment and counterparty decisions.

Our role
We conducted a human-source-led investigation to assess how these institutions and their leaders actually operate today, separating legacy perception from current operational reality.

HUMINT-Led Approach

15+ senior human sources across Brazil’s financial ecosystem
Interviews with:

Current and former asset-management and banking executives
Regulators, prosecutors, and former Central Bank officials
Institutional investors, analysts, and ratings specialists
Former employees with direct operational exposure

Triangulation between supportive, neutral, and critical sources
Clear separation of historic allegations from current governance practice

This approach identified where reputational risk genuinely persists — and where it no longer does.

Key Insights

Founder of the fund had a controversial corruption-link past, but more recently he has distanced himself from both politics and the business.
No evidence of current illegality or regulatory non-compliance at the fund
The firm’s current top level professional management has reinforced governance and controls, turning the page on its wheeling/dealing past.
Investor focus has shifted from past scandals to:

Transparency
Succession and key-man risk
Distance from political power

Client Value

The work enabled the client to:

Distinguish legacy reputation from present-day risk
Understand who really holds power inside complex institutions
Assess governance resilience and succession exposure
Make decisions based on market reality, not headlines
Demonstrate robust, source-backed due diligence