Julius Baer has bought a 30 per cent stake in a Brazil-based wealth management firm, underlying the growing profile of the country as a source of business.

The Swiss private banking group Julius Baer has acquired 30 per cent of São Paulo-based GPS, which includes GPS Planejamento Financeiro and CFO Administração de Recursos, for an undisclosed sum, at a time when wealth managers are increasingly flocking to Latin America.

This move underlines, Baer says, its strategic intention of building its wealth management business in what it sees as one of the most attractive and promising domestic wealth management markets worldwide.

GPS is, according to Baer, the largest independent wealth manager in Brazil, specialising, like its new partner, in discretionary portfolio management and advisory services for high net worth individuals, with approximately BRL8.5 billion ($5 billion) assets under management.

GPS was established in 1999 by its three founding partners José Eduardo Martins, Marco Belda and Roberto Rudge as a partnership which now has 84 staff. The current nine partners will continue to lead the business independently with the same team. Baer will have two directors on the board.

“Gaining the leading Swiss private banking group with their global research and market know-how as a strategic shareholder will definitely add international scale to our business offering,” said Martins and Belda in a statement.

Banks such as Citigroup and JP Morgan have been raising their profiles in the Latin America wealth management market, seen as an important growth area due to the rise of a new middle class.