By Brazil Stock Guide – Speaking at the Milken Institute Global Investors’ Symposium São Paulo 2025, banker André Esteves, senior partner and chairman of BTG Pactual, said Brazil enjoys a “rare combination” of institutional stability, clean energy, and diplomatic relevance. “If we play it right, Brazil can be a winner in this less multilateral world,” he said.
Esteves said global markets are being reshaped as capital flows diversify after the end of the so-called “American exceptionalism.” “The United States attracted money from around the world thanks to liquidity, innovation, and pro-business policies, but now faces greater volatility and concentration,” he said. As a result, portfolio diversification has benefited emerging markets such as Brazil. “Emerging-market stocks are outperforming the real U.S. economy,” he noted.
The AI Investment Wave
He pointed to the new wave of artificial intelligence investment—around US$350 billion in 2025—as the engine of a new global economic cycle. “We’re living a ‘Covid per year’ in terms of investment volume,” Esteves said, referring to the massive capex of big tech companies. The challenge, he added, lies in business models that have become more capital-intensive. “Productivity gains will be fast and global. Brazil will have the same chance to capture efficiency as the U.S., France, or China.”
Brazil’s Strategic Role
According to Esteves, Brazil should play to its strengths: a power matrix that is 85 percent renewable and a location suited to becoming a digital and energy infrastructure hub. “There’s no point trying to build chip factories here. Our advantage is cheap, clean energy and a sophisticated grid,” he said. He highlighted the new zero-tariff policy for data centers as a first step toward making Brazil a competitive alternative to Virginia, Texas, or Europe.
Diplomatically, Esteves argued that Brazil’s neutrality is an asset. “We’re a friendly nation with good relations with the U.S., Europe, China, and the Middle East. We have the soft power of natural resources and peace. If we stay balanced, we can gain space in this polarized world.”
From Wall Street to São Paulo
Ahead of COP30, the symposium united global investors and policymakers around the goal of channeling sustainable and innovative capital toward Brazil. The symposium was hosted by the Milken Institute, founded by American financier Michael Milken—the so-called “King of Junk Bonds” in the 1980s, who helped create the modern high-yield market before facing prosecution for securities fraud in the early 1990s. Recast as a philanthropist and advocate for innovation and education, Milken has turned his institute into a leading global platform for dialogue between investors and policymakers.
Fiscal Policy and Pragmatism
On domestic policy, André Esteves called for better coordination between fiscal and monetary measures. “It’s like driving with one foot on the accelerator and the other on the brake,” he said. He sees room for a fiscal adjustment of up to 2 percent of GDP without harming social programs, arguing that the economy “is working” and “depends only on us.”
Esteves noted that Brazil is currently near record-low unemployment, which he believes justifies reviewing automatic benefit increases. “We have a minimum-wage policy with real gains and a pension system that rises 2.5 percent a year. Even European social democracies don’t have that,” he said. Automatic indexation, he argued, disconnects public spending from productivity and increases fiscal rigidity.
Social Transfers and Productivity
While defending the Bolsa Família program as a “brilliant idea” that lifted millions from poverty, Esteves said it has expanded too far. “Our social-welfare network is now larger than France’s or Sweden’s,” he observed. He argued that beneficiaries from low-productivity programs should be encouraged into the formal labor market, expanding the tax base and reinforcing the dignity of work.
Esteves said the next ten years must focus on microeconomic reforms and regulatory simplification. “It shouldn’t take a year to open a pizza restaurant in a major Brazilian city,” he quipped. A productivity-driven agenda—less bureaucracy, more competition, and regulatory stability—will be the real engine of growth. “Fiscal discipline is the macro pillar. On the micro side, we need a pro-business agenda. The rest will follow naturally.”
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