OREANDA-NEWS. December 23, 2015. Fitch Ratings has affirmed the International Scale Asset Manager Rating for BNP Paribas Asset Management Brasil Ltda. (BNP PAM) at 'High Standards'. The Rating Outlook is Stable.

KEY RATING DRIVERS
The 'High Standards' rating assigned to BNP PAM reflects Fitch's opinion that the investment platform and operational framework of the asset manager are strong relative to the standards applied by institutional investors in international markets.

The rating of the asset manager reflects the benefits of being part of BNP Paribas group (IDR 'A+'; Outlook Stable by Fitch), its parent company, a global and well-established franchise. BNP PAM's rating factors in its experienced executive team, the firm's financial stability, a robust investment process as well as the group's solid operational and technological support. The rating also reflects strong control and governance structures.

The rating assigned to BNP PAM applies only to its activities in the Brazilian market and does not include its offshore funds, private banking activities, third-party funds of funds, fiduciary administration and custody operations. Those areas have their own processes and policies, which are segregated from the traditional fund management.

In Fitch's opinion, BNP PAM's key challenges are to increase the AUM of its value added strategies, maintain its team of professionals stable, improve the performance of part of its funds and keep on with its IT developments efforts in order to better integrate its front office systems.

The 'High Standards' rating is based on the following category assessments:

Company: High
Controls: High
Investments: Highest
Operations: High
Technology: High

Company
Established in 1998, BNP PAM is a subsidiary of the BNP Paribas group, a global diversified financial institution. BNP PAM had a total AUM of BRL38 billion in September 2015. BNP PAM is a manager specialized in providing investment solutions to a broad base of investors but with a special focus on mandates for institutional and corporate clients. Its organizational structure is fully segregated from BNP Paribas group's other activities, with a strong corporate governance and compliance policy. Fitch believes that the firm's overall structure is strong relative to the current level of AUM as well as the number and complexity of its investment strategies.

As of September 2015, BNP PAM reported the following client profile: institutional investors (57%), foreign investors (9%), private banking (7%), third party distributors (10%) as well as others (17%). Fixed income strategies represent the largest component of AUM (58%), while the remaining AUM is distributed among the following fund types: DI indexed (9%), multimarket (23%) and equities (9%). The DI linked mandates (basically money market and credit funds) have performed well in comparison to the benchmarks and peers in 2015. The other mandates (multimarket and equity), with some exceptions, had a performance slightly below average (3rd quartile) in the last 12 months. BNP PAM's AUM has been volatile since December 2010 with some increase in the last 12 months. The reason to this recent AUM growth is due to new pension funds and corporate mandates with significant inflows. However, even with this relevant AUM growth, most of these mandates have low management fees, which decreases the overall margins of BNP AM. Another point that is negatively impacting the revenue of BNP PAM is the migration of AUM from value added strategies to funds with lower management fees, in line with current trends of the Brazilian market.

Controls
The asset manager relies on a strong and independent risk and compliance structure, following the group's global methodologies and guidelines. BNP PAM presents solid operating risk controls, with low operating losses in the last 24 months, well-formalized and documented compliance policies and strong procedures on market risk and liquidity control. The company also uses post-trading compliance controls, which are monitored using Nexxus, a well-regarded system. These controls are very good and suitable for the current number of funds and strategies. Fitch is following the developments on the integration of front office systems which will include a pre-trading module. The agency believes that this implementation would enhance portfolio management control. Fund limit breaches have been low and promptly resolved.

Investments
BNP PAM maintains a robust investment process, based on committees supported by strong macroeconomic and quantitative research. It uses a top down approach, with detailed strategies supported by good proprietary analyses of the companies for equities mandates. Fitch considers the investment process to be well-structured, with detailed strategies adapted to the limits and rules of each mandate despite portfolio managers having some autonomy in their decisions. The process is well-formalized and segmented among three areas with qualified and experienced professionals. Its investment team consists of: one Head of Fixed Income, one Head of Equities, five portfolio managers, eight analysts, three traders, two economists and one quantitative analyst. BNP PAM hired a new senior PM to be dedicated to the multimarkets macro strategy. This PM, who is Brazilian, already worked for the BNP Paribas group as a trader at the corporate treasury department of the bank in the United States. In Brazil, he will report to the Head of FI. After relevant personnel turnover in 2013, including the CEO and many of the PMs, the investment team has been stable in the last 18 months with only minor adjustments. In 2015, BNP PAM also hired another senior PM to start an alternative investments area in order to enhance its product offering. His team will be segregated from the current investment personnel. The asset manager plans to launch these new investment strategies throughout 2016.

Operations
The asset manager provides a very good level of transparency and communication materials to its investors, while adhering to all the disclosure requirements of the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM) and the Brazilian Association of Entities of the Financial and Capital Markets (Anbima).

Similar to other large bank-affiliated asset managers in Brazil, the fiduciary administration and custody activities are mostly developed by another business unit of the group. The processes observe regulations and are supported by solid technological platform (YMF), with good process automation. In addition, the middle-office areas carry out the reconciliation of the whole operating process, including the trading activity.

Technology
BNP PAM relies on solid asset management, risk control and back-office systems, besides benefitting from the strong structure and technological platform of BNP Paribas group. The asset manager relies on a good risk control system (Mitra - provided by Luz Engenharia) and solid order management system for equities (provided by Bloomberg). BNP PAM is on the final stage of selecting a provider to implement a straight through processing solution and consolidate its front office platforms. The project is expected to be concluded within the next 24 months. Safety and contingency back up resources are solid and provide a very good level of service in case of need.

Company Profile
BNP PAM, established in 1998, is the 12th largest asset manager in Brazil with AUM of BRL38 billion (considering funds and managed accounts), as of September 2015 incorporated in Sso Paulo (SP), it is a subsidiary of BNP Paribas group.

RATING SENSITIVITIES

BNP PAM's rating can be sensitive to relevant adverse changes to any of the major fundamentals mentioned above, such as weakening of its financial profile, high professional turnover or deterioration in its processes and policies. Furthermore, it will be important for BNP PAM to develop investment structure, systems and controls further, to be more scalable should the firm seek to add new strategies or if AUM materially increases. A major deviation from Fitch guidelines in relation to any key factors can lead to a rating downgrade.

To obtain additional information on Fitch's asset manager rating criteria, please refer to the criteria mentioned below, available on the agency's websites at 'www.fitchratings.com' or 'www.fitchratings.com.br'.