French banking giant BNP Paribas is planning to acquire a Brazilian brokerage before the end of the year to enter the competition for clients in the country’s initial public offering market, according to Bloomberg, which cited an executive of the bank’s Brazilian unit.

“Without a brokerage, we have no way of entering this segment, which is considered strategic for our investment banking business to grow faster in Brazil,” Renato Abissamra Filho, chief operating officer for Banco BNP Paribas Brasil’s wealth management unit, is reported to have said in an interview in Sao Paulo.

BNP declined to comment on the matter when contacted by WealthBriefing.

Foreign institutions as yet inactive in Brazil’s IPO market are eager to buy brokerages, reports the publication. Earlier this year UBS negotiated an agreement to acquire the Brazilian brokerage firm Link Investimentos for BRL195 million (about $110 million). Meanwhile, Itau Corretora, the brokerage arm of Brazilian banking group Itau Unibanco, is considering buying competitors, Jean Sigrist, head of retail investment at the brokerage unit, is reported as having said in July.

Brazil, as one of the BRICs, receives a lot of attention as a source of future wealth creation. For example, at Equity Trust’s recent “Spotlight BRIC” briefing, Emilio Miguel, the firm’s regional commercial director for the Latin American and Caribbean region, said analysts are predicting a massive 37 per cent growth in the country’s infrastructure by 2013.