(Bloomberg) -- Former executives from Citigroup Inc. and Nomura Asset Management are forming a new hedge fund based in Rio de Janeiro that will focus mostly on equities.
Luciano Brandao, who had a stint as head of Latin American markets at Nomura's asset management unit in London, and ex-Citi Latin America equity research director Pedro Medeiros are two of the founders behind Atalaya Gestao de Recursos Ltda, according to regulatory filings and LinkedIn data.
Atalaya will launch an equity-focused hedge fund by early 2021, according to people familiar with the plans, who asked not to be named because the information isn't public yet. It will start with a team of up to 10 employees, the people said. Joao Kacser, who worked at TP ICAP Plc, will also be a partner, filings show.
The firm has no relation to New-York based Atalaya Capital Management LP.
Brandao, Medeiros and Kacser declined to comment.
As part of a hedge-fund boom in Brazil driven by record low interest rates, seasoned traders, money managers and analysts are uniting to create new firms at a breakneck pace. Brazilian investors, long used to clipping massive coupons on government notes, are now having to plow into riskier assets to get decent returns.
Read more on Brazil's hedge fund fever
Atalaya's fund will seek to buck adverse macro moments by identifying micro and quantitative trends and using tools to minimize volatility, according to its website.
Earlier this year, Brandao left hedge fund BlueLine Asset Management. He has also worked at Andre Jakurski's JGP Asset Management in Rio. His partner Medeiros covered sectors such as commodities, industrials and health care on the sell-side for almost two decades.
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