Welcome to the second quarter of 2025 results conference call of Banco BTG Pactual. With us here today, we have Roberto Sallouti, Renato Hermann Cohn, and Giulia Rocha. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded, and all participants will be in a listen-only mode during the bank's presentation. After Banco BTG Pactual's remarks, there will be a question and answer session for investors and analysts when further instructions will be given. Today, we have a simultaneous webcast that may be accessed through the website www.btgpactual.com/ir and the platform. There will be a replay facility for this call from today. Before proceeding, let me mention that this call may contain forward-looking statements relating to the prospects of the business, estimates for operating and financial results, and those related to the growth prospects of Banco BTG Pactual.
These are merely projections and, as such, are based exclusively on the expectations of Banco BTG Pactual's management concerning the future of the business. Such forward-looking statements depend substantially on changes in market conditions, government regulations, competitive pressures, the performance of the Brazilian economy, and the industry, among other factors and risks disclosed in Banco BTG Pactual's file of disclosures documents and are, therefore, subject to change without prior notice. Now, I'll turn the floor to Mr. Roberto Sallouti, who will begin the presentation. Mr. Sallouti, please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here with you talking about our second quarter results. I will start with the quarter highlights in page three of the presentation. Of course, I think that the most important highlight here is the return on equity for the quarter. We reached 27.1% ROE, and this is a result of a great performance by all the different business units. We finished the quarter with BRL 8.3 billion revenues and an income of BRL 4.2 billion. We had an all-time high result in Investment Banking. This was led by very strong M&A, where we had the conclusion of various transactions, which we have been working actually on for the last few years, and with continued strength in DCM, and actually probably the strongest quarter of the last, I would say, eight or ten in equity capital markets too.
Talking about the third point of the presentation, we had record results in our Corporate Lending and Business Banking, and this reflects the growth of the portfolio while we continue to maintain quality risk-adjusted good spreads, continue to grow Business Banking, and continue to benefit from the geographical and sector diversification that we have. In Sales and Trading, we also reached an all-time high result, and this was supported by the continued increase in client activity as we continue to penetrate new segments and gain market shares in others, as well as continue to roll out new products. You probably have also noticed we increased the VAR allocation in the quarter, and this also helped the results of the quarter.
Wealth Management also had another record quarter, and in this quarter, we basically, we actually only had organic flows, but we continue to see here the benefit of the different initiatives that we've had over the last few years. Finally, we continue to grow our LATAM presence with the acquisition of HSBC Uruguay. Just in a nutshell here, what I think is important is that we see in this quarter the continued maturation of the various investments we made in the last few years. We continue to benefit from the full banking digital platform that we have in Brazil, where we basically are covering all products and segments. We continue to benefit from our growth in Latin America, and we're starting to see some revenues come from the growth of our Wealth Management operations in both Europe and the U.S.
Turning to page four, we talk a bit about the numbers for the quarter. Total revenues growing 38% year-over-year to BRL 8.3 billion. Net income growing 42% year-over-year to BRL 4.2 billion. We continue to benefit from operational leverage in our platform, and this results in a 27.1% ROE compared to 23.2% in the first quarter of the year. Turning to page five, we talk about net new money, BRL 59 billion for the quarter, roughly half Wealth Management, half Asset Management. Once again, 100% organic. Very strong flows from the continuation of business and the past investments we've made in acquisitions and marketing and platforms and technology. Our Wealth Management AUM grew 32% year-over-year to BRL 1.56 trillion, and our Asset Management AUM growing 19% year-over-year to BRL 1.90 trillion. On page six, we talk about funding and credit.
We continue to grow our unsecured funding, 19% year-over-year, reaching BRL 280 billion. We continue to grow our credit portfolio 22% year-over-year, reaching BRL 238 billion, BRL 29 billion of which in the SME. As you all are probably aware, the SME sector, given the whole EOF discussions, was a bit volatile in this quarter, but we continue to see good underlying trends in that business. We finished very well capitalized with a Basel ratio increasing to 16.2% in the quarter, finishing with net equity of BRL 64 billion. Turning to page seven, we show the traditional way we've been showing results. Once again, revenues of BRL 8.3 billion, net income of BRL 4.2 billion, net income per unit of BRL 1.10, revenues growing 38% year-over-year, net income 42% year-over-year. We continue to improve our cost-to-income ratio as we benefit from operational leverage, reaching in the quarter 35.6%.
Our shareholder equity grew 20% year-over-year, and we also increased VAR slightly to 22 bps in the quarter. Turning to page eight, we talk about the first half of the year, the first six months of the year, and we finished the first six months with revenues of BRL 15.1 billion, net income of BRL 7.5 billion, a return on equity for the first six months of 25.1%, net income per unit of BRL 1.98, and six months versus six months, growth in revenues of 27%, of net income and 29%. Once again, showing the operational leverage, cost income at 36.2%, and a VAR of 19 bps for the first half of the year. Finally, on page nine, we see the breakdown by different business units. Investment Banking, even though we had a strong quarter, it's still falling last 12 months versus last 12 months, 9%.
Very strong performance by Corporate Lending and Business Banking, reaching 34% growth and becoming our business line with the highest revenues. Sales and Trading back to growth. As you told, we told you the last few quarters we had been a bit frustrated with actually what was a fall or a stable Sales and Trading business, but we saw the trends that would permit us to go back to growth, and we start to see this in this quarter with 11% growth here last 12 months versus last 12 months. Very strong growth in Asset Management of 25%, 12 months versus 12 months, and 23% in Wealth Management. Actually, our Investment Management business reaching $6.9 billion AUM, so the second largest contributor after our credit and Business Banking business. Strong contribution growth from participations, 94% as we start accruing more of the portfolios that we had acquired from Banco Pan.
Finally, a 26% growth in interest and other. This, of course, reflects the increase in the SELIC, but it also reflects the fact that we have a fortress balance sheet where we have a very significant part of our equity in cash, and thus we're able to benefit from the higher interest rate environment. With that, I'll pass to Renato Hermann Cohn, who will talk about each of the business units, and then we can open for questions.
Thank you, Roberto. Starting in Investment Banking on page 11, we see that we had record revenues driven by very strong M&A contribution combined with strong DCM performance. The revenues came at BRL 782 million during the quarter. That's more than double what we achieved in the first quarter of 2025, and that's a 40% increase when we compare to the second quarter of last year. In DCM, after a weak first quarter, which was affected by year-end very high volatility in financial markets, we saw a normalization of market activity. Both number of transactions and volume of transactions increased and reached similar levels of what we have seen throughout 2024. DCM continues to be the most important contributor to Investment Banking revenues, and we continue to see similar levels of activity already during this first part of the third quarter.
We also had very strong revenues coming from M&A, and those were driven by a concentration of some large transactions that we concluded during this quarter. We always mention that we have a robust pipeline to be executed, and the timing of the conclusion of those transactions is very difficult to predict. This quarter, we concluded some large ones, obviously some smaller ones as well, but there was a concentration of larger ones, and we still see an important pipeline to be executed in the next few quarters. DCM, despite the challenging environment, continues to contribute to overall results with transactions in Brazil and in Latin America.
When we look at the right side of the slide, for the ranking for M&A during the second quarter of 2025, we were ranked number one in number of transactions in Brazil and in Latin America, and number two in volume of transactions also in Brazil and in Latin America. For ECM, we were ranked number one in number of transactions in Brazil, number two in volume of transactions in Brazil, and also number two in number of transactions in Latin America. Going to page 12, we see our Corporate Lending and Business Banking, where we also had record revenues reflecting ongoing portfolio expansion, stable risk-adjusted returns, and business diversification. Revenues came at BRL 2.1 billion during the quarter, and that's a 9% increase when we compare to the first quarter of 2025, and a 37% increase when we compare to the second quarter of 2024.
Total portfolio reached BRL 238 billion, which is an increase of 3% during the quarter, and a 22% increase when we compare to the second quarter of last year. We continue to maintain a well-diversified portfolio focused on high-quality credit exposures and disciplined levels of provision. We also continue to diversify into new segments and new geographies as we enhance our origination capabilities. For our corporate and SME portfolios, credit spreads over funding remain stable as we continue to work and benefit from the successful reduction of our overall cost of funding. For the total portfolio, the overall quarterly spreads increased during the quarter as we benefited from stronger results coming from our special situation business. We also are very proud that for the second year in a row, BTG Pactual Empresas, BTG Pactual Business, has been recognized as the best digital bank for corporates in Brazil by Euromoney.
Moving now to Sales and Trading on page 13, we also had record revenues driven by increased client activity and effective risk allocation. Revenues came at BRL 1.9 billion. That's 46% higher than the previous quarter and 38% higher than the second quarter of 2024. As Roberto mentioned, average VAR increased to 22 basis points while still remaining conservative and below our historical levels. The market risk component of our risk-weighted assets increased to 25% but remained within the range of what we've seen in the last few quarters. In the last six months, revenues reached BRL 3.2 billion. That's a 17% increase when you compare to the same period of 2024, as we continue to expand our client base, and at the same time, we continue to add new products and new services for this expanded client base.
Looking now at our Asset Management business on page 14, we saw strong inflows coupled with consistent growth in management fee revenues. Revenue came at BRL 624 million, and that's a 15% reduction when we compare to the first quarter of 2025. It's important to note here that during the first quarter of 2025, we recorded very strong contribution from dividends coming from the minority stakes in independent asset managers that we invest in, and we also recorded some performance revenues. During this quarter, we basically didn't record any dividend and a small amount of performance. When we look overall, it's important to note that the management and administration fees continue to increase in line with the growth of overall assets under management and administration.
When you compare revenues of this second quarter of 2025 with the second quarter of last year, we see a 14% increase driven by an 18.5% expansion of our assets under management and administration, which by the end of the quarter reached BRL 1.90 billion. We recorded strong net new money inflows of BRL 28 billion during the quarter, despite the asset management industry outflows of BRL 39 billion, which once again proves the robustness of our business. Looking now to our Wealth Management and Personal Banking business on page 15, we also had record revenues and very strong growth anchored by consistent and robust net new money inflows. Revenues came at BRL 1.239 billion, which is an increase of 18% during the quarter and a 33.5% increase when we compare to the second quarter of 2024.
Wealth under management reached BRL 1.56 billion, which is a 6% increase when we compare to the previous quarter, and it's 32% higher than the second quarter of last year. Net new money was 100% organic and came at BRL 30.6 billion during the quarter, once again highlighting the consistency in net new money generation that we have been showing for many previous quarters, despite the different and challenging market environment. Stronger revenue growth came as a consequence of increased client activity and also the consolidation of Julius Baer revenues that now entered for the full quarter. We successfully completed the acquisition of JGP in July, adding BRL 18 billion in wealth under management, and this number will be reflected during the third quarter results. Here we are also very proud that we were voted Best Private Bank in Latin America by the Euromoney Private Banking Award.
Going now to participations on page 16, we see that we had an overall contribution of BRL 279 million in profits. Too Seguros contributed with BRL 64 million in profits. Equity pickup from Banco Pan came in at BRL 133 million, and the accrual of Banco Pan credit portfolios that were acquired in previous quarters came at BRL 82 million. It is important here to note that in line with Banco Pan's strategy to retain a larger credit portfolio, we didn't execute any acquisition of payroll loan portfolios from Banco Pan during this quarter. Going now on to page 18, we look into our expenses and main ratios, and here we see that we continue to see operating leverage kicking in with a cost-income ratio improving to 36% as our new business initiatives continue to gain traction.
Total operating expenses grew 16% in the quarter, but most of the growth came as a consequence of higher bonus provision and in line with the strong revenue generation expansion that we saw during this quarter. When we look at salaries and benefits, we see that they grew 3.6% during the quarter, and administrative and other grew 7% during this quarter, as both reflected now the impact of Julius Baer acquisition. Goodwill amortization increased 10% during the quarter, also reflecting Julius Baer acquisition, and our effective tax rate came at 20.3% during this quarter. Going now to our balance sheet on page 20, we see that total assets reached BRL 656 billion, which represents 8.9x our equity. Our coverage ratio increased during the quarter to 155% as our unsecured funding grew more than our on-balance credit portfolio.
Our Corporate Lending and Business Banking credit portfolio now represents 3.7x our equity. Last quarter was 3.9x, so because of the strong equity growth, it reduced to 3.7x. Moving now to our unsecured funding base, on page 21, our total funding base reached BRL 280 billion. That's a 7% increase when we compare to the previous quarter and a 19% increase when we compare to the second quarter of 2024. That came despite the 5% depreciation of the U.S. dollar against the Brazilian real. The share of retail funding remains stable at 30% despite the strong total funding expansion, and demand deposits remain stable at BRL 19.6 billion, representing 7% of our total funding base. As I mentioned during the Corporate Lending and Business Banking slide, we continue to expand our funding base, and at the same time, we continue to reduce our overall cost of funding.
Finally, looking at our Basel ratio on page 22, we see that our total Basel ratio increased 80 basis points during the quarter, reaching 16.2%. That came as a consequence of the strong results that we presented and also the successful issuance of a Tier 1 notes, which contributed with approximately 30 basis points in additional Tier 1 capital. We see that Tier 1 capital increased from 12.2% to 13% during this quarter, and the total Basel ratio increased from 15.4% to 16.2%. As I mentioned before, our average daily VAR reached 22 basis points, an increase when we compare to previous quarters, but still below our historical levels as we deployed a little bit more risk and we benefited from the increased levels of client activity.
I think to conclude, we are extremely satisfied with these results, reaching record revenues in almost all our business lines, which shows the potential of our business when we have slightly better market conditions and increased levels of client activities. I think with that, we can open for questions.
Thank you. The floor is now open for questions from investors and analysts. If you have a question, click raise hand at this time. If at any point your question is answered, you can remove yourself from the queue by clicking lower hand. Questions will be taken in the order that they are received. Please hold while we poll for questions. The first question comes from Tito Labarta with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Please hold a second.
Hi, good morning. Sallouti, Cohn, Giulia, thank you for the call and taking my questions. Congratulations on the very strong results. I guess the main question here, I mean, given you're achieving record revenues in almost every single line, was there a step change here? Just to try to think about how sustainable this is going forward or anything that you think benefited from seasonality, anything extraordinary in the quarter to highlight? How do we think about the forward from here in terms of the sustainability? I won't go line by line, but pretty much almost every single line, a record quarter. Just to think of the forward on that. I guess also along those lines with the ROE, as you mentioned, very strong 27%. How do we, you've guided for higher ROE, it seems very easy to deliver on that for this year.
How do you think about the ROE from here? Is this 27% a new level that can be sustainable? Should that come back a little bit going forward? Just help us think about the overall profitability of the business. Thank you.
Thank you, Tito. As you mentioned, I think there are two things happening this quarter. I think, yes, there is a step change in some of the business lines, and I think this is clearly reflected in Wealth Management and Corporate Lending. It is also very not usual that you have a quarter where all the business lines have very strong performances, right? What you've seen, since you've been following us, every quarter, let's say you have a strong two or three business lines, others perform in line, maybe you have one that's weaker. This quarter, I think we had the combination where all the business lines were strong. Not necessarily that there was something out of the ordinary, but all of them were strong.
Having said that, as you know, we're quite conservative in offering guidance, and what we stated at the end of last year was that we expected to continue gaining operating leverage in our business and that we thought that the return on equity would be above 23.1%, which was what we delivered last year. Right now, I think we're comfortable to say that even using the math and what we're seeing from the structural levels of the business, we're quite comfortable in signaling that we expect to deliver for this year, let's say for the full year, 24% or above. Naturally, if we continue to have strong performance in the different business lines, the good fundamentals that we saw this quarter, we will probably overperform that.
We're going to continue with our conservative guidance, increasing it a bit, but we don't want to commit to any different levels than this 24% for this year for now.
No, very helpful, Sallouti. Thanks for that. Maybe just one follow-up, maybe digging on the Wealth Management. Also, you know, very strong inflows. I mean, that's been an area of growth for you. Can you, just to think about the competitive environment there, are you maybe gaining more market share than before? Are you just benefiting? Is the general market doing better than expected? Just to think about that level of inflows that we saw in Wealth Management and how much of it was BTG specific and how much maybe the industry doing better. Thank you.
No, I think it's fair to say that we are gaining market share. This, as I mentioned, is a consequence of our expansion of products. In our Wealth Management line, we also have Personal Banking. We're seeing net inflows from the high-income retail segment and good inflows in Wealth Management. We're seeing clients using more products. The market, as you know, had a small blip in the second quarter, but nothing great. I think it is fair to assume that we've been gaining market share.
Okay, that's helpful. Thank you, Sallouti, and congrats again on the strong results.
Thanks, Tito.
The next question comes from Renato Meloni at Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.
Hi everyone. Congrats on the results here and thanks for letting me ask questions. I wanted to just focus a bit on the Corporate Lending side. I know you mentioned during the presentation that you had some extraordinary results from special situations. First, I wanted to understand if you carry that over or if those were one-offs and then by how much we should adjust the revenues. Still within Corporate Lending, if core spreads were similar to last quarter, if you adjust for these events, how should we think about it for the rest of the year? Thanks.
Hi, Renato. I think we had strong revenues throughout the Corporate Lending business, and I mentioned that we had stronger results coming from special situations. I wouldn't call it a one-off or anything different. They came stronger. They always contribute with our overall Corporate Lending results. This quarter specifically, they contributed a little bit more than the, let's say, the average contribution. As I mentioned, the credit spreads over our cost of funding for the corporate credit and for the SMEs remained stable, right? There was not much of a change when you consider the credit spreads of the portfolio and the cost of funding. I mentioned that we continue to manage and to be able to reduce our overall cost of funding. We are benefiting from that, and that has allowed us to maintain a stable level of spread.
When you see the overall, when you include these special situations, you see that the overall credit spread increased a little bit because of this higher contribution of special situations. That's basically what happened during this quarter.
No, perfect. That's understood. If you would just allow me for a follow-up here. If you want to be more specific, if I'm estimating your net financial margin based on revenues divided by the average balances, right? That was 3.4x in the first quarter and then that increased to 3.6x. Should I carry this over, this 3.6x, for the next quarters? Or do you think we might have a small decline because of the special situations?
Look, we don't want to provide future guidance, but as I said, we've been seeing this 3.4x that you mentioned as somewhat stable, right, for a few quarters. Depending on the contribution of special situations, it can vary a little bit. That's the idea. I think it's important to know that we are seeing a higher contribution quarter-over-quarter as we continue to develop our Business Banking business, right? This is one of our business initiatives that we've been developing for the last few years. As time goes by, we increase the number of clients and the products that we offer to that, and this contributes more to the overall Corporate Lending business.
Perfect. Understood. Thanks very much, guys, and congrats again on the great results.
Thank you, Amir.
The next question comes from Marcelo Mizrahi with Bradesco BBI. Please go ahead.
Hello everyone. Thank you for the opportunity. Congratulations for the results. Fantastic results. Looking forward, my question is about the Corporate Lending and the Investment Banking. I'm talking about Investment Banking. First, I just want to understand how you guys are seeing the perspective to this business. We saw fantastic results in the last quarter. I just want to understand a little bit more if the revenues come more from M&A or if they come from DCM and looking for the perspective of those businesses. If we can have something close to these levels or even higher than the level of the first quarter.
My second question is regarding Corporate Lending and if the impact of the noise about the new measure about EOF, so the impact of [Mutsudenchi Mutsakado] funds and if it hurts the growth of SME, the perspective to grow this line in the next quarters. Thank you.
Thank you, Marcelo. Yeah, we do believe that SME was impacted in the quarter by the whole EOF novel, first to use a friendly term. We expect to hopefully go back to growth. Here, as you know, we're always very disciplined. We have to make sure that the return you're getting for unit of risk makes sense. We keep this discipline. I think what we love about our franchise is that it's very diversified geographically, sector segment. We can make sure that we're always allocating risk where we think we are being rewarded for each unit of risk allocated. On the Investment Banking segment, yes, I would say that probably M&A was very special this quarter. Probably will not repeat in the next. We see DCM and ECM at similar levels, maybe even possibly stronger.
If you look at third and fourth quarters, maybe they will not be as strong as the second quarter, but we see them stronger than the first quarter. You have to remember that in the first quarter, people had, we were getting questions of very significant drops in Investment Banking. We were a bit more constructive, and I think now that's proven to be the right scenario.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from Gustavo Schroden with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning everybody. Thanks for taking my question and congratulations on the strong results. My question is specifically on your Sales and Trading gains. It was a record, BRL 1.9 billion. I just wanted to understand if there is any specific trading or trading desk that was different in this quarter. We saw that although the VAR is still below the historical level, there was a small increase versus previous quarters. I just wanted to understand what has been driving this line in the quarter. Thank you.
Hi, Gustavo. No, there was not a specific trading desk, any trading desk that contributed more significantly to the results. As we always mentioned, we have quite a large range of different trading desks, and they all, sometimes one performs better than the other. This quarter was not different. I think that what we have seen here and throughout the overall results is that the client activity, right, we saw much stronger client activity this quarter when we compare to the previous quarter, right? This stronger level of client activity impacted not just Sales and Trading, it impacted Investment Banking revenues, it impacted also Wealth Management revenues. We see this in these three business lines, but we obviously see this in our Sales and Trading business lines. Obviously, this is a consequence of the combination of higher client activity, but also of our expanded client base.
We continue through time to expand our overall client base in many different businesses that obviously relate to Sales and Trading, right? Also, new products, new business lines within the Sales and Trading overall all contributed to these high results that we saw during this quarter.
Okay, thank you, Cohn. Just a follow-up on this, you remain with that, let's say, soft guidance that the last four quarters moving averages is the best to use as a forecast, right?
Yes, we continue with that guidance.
Great, thank you.
The next question comes from Daniel Vaz with Safra. Please go ahead.
Hi everyone. Congrats on a very positive quarter. Stellar results here. I want to touch base again on the portfolios from the Corporate Lending side, right? We already know the EOF, the IOF new flow that affected your growth. Looking at a system level, we note some deterioration of the asset quality on SMEs, right? I'm looking at Central Bank, I'm looking at the incumbents that already reported results. I want to hear from you, Sallouti, Cohn, or Giulia, if this is influencing somehow your going forward level of originations in especially the SME business, right? I want to hear from you to get a point of this. Thank you.
Thanks, Daniel. As I think we mentioned in the last few calls, we still continue with a very conservative approach on the SME credit lines focused on the collaterals. The most part of our portfolio is supply chain finance and credit card receivables. We still maintain the strategy. As our Business Banking activity grows, with that, we have been getting more significant data. We are building out our models for, let's say, riskier lines of credit or more clean credit, but we have not grown them significantly. We have not seen this deterioration basically because of the segment that we're in or the products we are in. We still continue with the plan that over time we will continue to grow the business in these product lines, which, as you mentioned, are more volatile, have a bit more risk, but also have higher spreads. We are not there yet.
We are confident that it's a matter of time. We are in no hurry, especially in a more difficult environment, as you mentioned, which we can see from the macro numbers.
Thank you. If I may, a second one regarding a totally different subject. On your current level of net new money, if you are seeing an acceleration in market share gains, right, especially when we see the system inflows could be softer and you were able to maintain the level that you were delivering in net new money in the Wealth Management business. Is it possible to affirm you're gaining market share or even accelerating this?
As you know, the numbers are not perfect for the industry, but given what we see from public numbers, yes, that is a fair assumption.
Okay, thanks. Congrats again.
The next question comes from Thiago Batista with UBS BB. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hi, Sallouti. Hi, Renato. Giulia, congrats for the very strong results. My question is about your capital position and dividend policy. You guys, you have now a corporate capital of, let's say, a corporate capital ratio of 12%, Tier 1 ratio of 13%, which seems very comfortable. More than that, if I look only on how much you can pay on JCP or IOC, you can pay more or less about 30% of your earnings. This means that you need to generate about, let's say, BRL 100 billion of risk-weighted assets per year to maintain the leverage pretty much stable. How can we think on the capital position of the bank, is it possible to really add BRL 100 billion per year of risk-weighted assets, or can we imagine a higher payout ratio? How can we think about your ongoing capital position?
Hi, Thiago. Thank you. Thank you for the question. I think we've been managing well our capital base, and I think as you mentioned, we've been exactly being able to generate those increasing risk-weighted assets, right? The two areas that use most risk-weighted assets are the Corporate Lending, and we manage to grow the Corporate Lending at a reasonable pace, right? We always mention that we expect to grow at around 20% per year. The last two years, we managed to grow more than that. This year, we are very close to this level of growth, and we think we can maintain this level of growth. I think Sales and Trading, then the usage of risk-weighted assets there and capital, it's more volatile. I think we think that we are in a range that the capital that we generate to the profits every quarter, we can manage to use them.
I think we are far from a discussion on any possible change of our dividend policy. I think we'll maintain that for a while.
No, very clear, Renato. Thanks for the answer. Again, very good results. Thanks. Congrats.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Antonio Ruette with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for your time and congratulations on the impressive results. I have two questions on my side. First, it's a follow-up on Vaz's questions, I think, regarding market share gains. What would you say, how would you assess competition in the asset and wealth business since the last easing cycle? Rephrasing that, how did you perceive the evolution of incumbent banks, the evolution of fintechs, and if you are positioned better, positioned to benefit from another easing cycle? The second question, if I may, we have a pretty stressed situation in the [HURO] segment and regarding [HURO] credit. I would just like to ask if you see any opportunities on the segment in terms of special situations or even in other lines of Corporate Lending. Thank you.
Hi, Antonio. On your first question on the Wealth Management business, clearly what we see is that, as usual, all of the competitors are improving their platforms. This, I think, is great for the consumer at the end of the day. We see incumbents and the newcomers all improving. We also continue to improve and continue to roll out new products. It's a constant learning process. I think we're doing a good job. This is not me saying, this is our client saying, right? I think the best recognition that we can get is, of course, the rewards are important. More important than the rewards is the client flows and the market share. As we all know, you cannot stop. You need to continue improving. We are seeing the market improving. We think we're improving at the same pace or slightly faster. We're seeing that in the flows.
Yes, I think we're definitely very well positioned to benefit from an easing cycle if that happens. If you ask me, I think every week or every month that passes, we will be in an even stronger position to benefit from that. On your second question of the stress in the rural segment, of course, we're following that very closely. We do not have any significant exposure that is being affected by that. We're following it closely, but it's still too early to say if we see any strategic or opportunistic significant opportunities in the segment. We still have not made anything. We're still just following it very closely.
All right, thank you very much.
The next question comes from Henrique Navarro with Santander. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. My question is on the corporate segment, specifically on large corporate. We have seen some banks struggling to grow this lending book this year, yet BTG posted up like 3% growth quarter-over-quarter, which was impressive and very good results on corporates. My question is, how do you see the pace of growth looking forward? If you can give a little bit more detail on how this growth was achieved, I mean, was it capital markets, some bonds that were incorporated? How did you guys manage to grow that number in this environment? Thank you.
Hi Navarro, thank you for your question. We continue to see 20% growth in credits, which is what Cohn just answered on the previous question about capital allocation. We're growing our capital after dividends around 20% or a bit below that, and we continue to expect to grow there. I think we have the benefits that were coming from lower market shares in the different segments. In some, we basically had zero market share. Here we have SME, just how we look at it. We look at SME, middle, corporate, and large corporate. Where we had the highest market share was large corporate, but even compared to the competitors, it was a smaller market share. We are seeing growth there.
As you said, we're not using capital markets, and we're being very disciplined because, as your question suggests, you also think that in some situations, spreads are too tight, and we agree with you. We are seeing good growth in corporate. Middle, SME was a bit tougher this quarter because of IOF, but we're also benefiting from our geographical diversification. We continue to grow across the different geographies where we're present. This is why we think that we can continue to see not only growth, but good risk allocation. It's the benefit of the different segments, different sectors, and different geographies. The fact that we're coming from smaller market shares compared to the one or two largest banks in all of these different segments.
Thank you, and congratulations for the results.
Thanks.
The next question comes from Yuri Fernandes with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hey guys, thank you. I don't want to sound repetitive, but congratulations. ROE with capital generation, it's a powerful combination. Congrats. I have a question regarding expenses. I think it's one of the two topics that we didn't address. I totally get that Investment Banking, Sales and Trading, some of the other revenues, they trigger higher bonus and the bonus line was higher. Just any outlook for the second half, just trying to understand here if given the second quarter was so strong, trying to understand if you took the advantage of this to kind of provision a little bit more your expenses. In the second half, maybe the expenses could be a little bit lower. Thank you.
Hi, Yuri. No, thank you for the question. No, I think there's no advanced provision in expenses in this quarter. It's all related to, the bonus expenses are related to the revenues of the quarter, right? Salaries and administrative and others as well, right? We would expect for the next quarter, I wouldn't say a similar behavior because this quarter, as I mentioned, we impacted, there was the impact of the consolidation of Julius Baer, right? Both in the salaries and administrative and others. We won't have this impact in the third quarter. We'll have the impact of JGP Wealth, right? Which is the business that we acquired. In terms of cost, it is smaller than Julius Baer. There's no effect between the quarters of any type of advanced provision.
Thank you, Renato.
The next question comes from Pedro Leduc with Itaú BBA. Please go ahead.
Thanks, guys, for the call and taking the question. Quickly, first, we saw a recent deal there in HSBC Uruguay, a lot of other things you're doing abroad. If you can get us a sense of maybe how much of the loan book or of top line is already coming from operations outside of Brazil. The second question, onto your Wealth Management division, another very solid quarter, you know, in terms of net new money. Especially when I look at take rates, we're now past the consolidation of Julius Baer, and there seems to have been no major change, even though in theory it's a different profile client. If you can talk to us a little bit of how to see Wealth Management take rates and maybe also net new money for the remainder of the year, that would be great. Thank you.
Hi, Pedro. Regarding the loan book, I think we mentioned in the fourth quarter that our exposure outside of Brazil reached 20%. It grew from there. It grew a little bit. Obviously, those percentages, the share, if you grow at a more accelerated pace, it grows slowly. The percentage is a little bit higher than the 20% that we mentioned. This is an indication for the Corporate Lending business. We have businesses in Latin America and outside Brazil. Overall, we have businesses of Investment Banking, Wealth Management, Asset Management, and Sales and Trading. All businesses there are represented with similar participation in terms of revenues. That's the first one. The second one is related to the return on assets on the Wealth Management.
I think the acquisition of Julius Baer, the return on assets of Julius Baer is not very different from the overall return on assets of our Wealth Management business line. It's similar there. What you have, you have a mathematical effect because the AUM of Julius Baer entered in the second quarter, but in the first quarter without recording any revenues in the first quarter. There was a dilution there. Now in the second quarter, you don't have any more impact. The AUM is there, but when you compare the start of the quarter with the end of the quarter, it's the same number. You now have fully the revenues originated from Julius Baer acquisition. You had a dilution of return on assets in the first quarter and a normalization, I will call it that way, in the second quarter.
Thank you. Congrats again.
The next question comes from Nicolas Riva with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. Thanks very much for the chance to ask questions. I have three questions. The first one is you have a senior bond maturity in January, $500 million. If you can discuss to some extent the refinancing plans for that senior bond in January. Second, in the quarter, during the last quarter, you raised BRL 1.5 billion in AT1 capital in the local market. I wanted to confirm if your preference continues to be to raise subordinated debt, either Tier 2 or AT1 capital in the local market in reais instead of the global market. My third question is you recently announced the acquisition of HSBC Uruguay for $175 million. There was, I think, one of the last questions related to that. My question is, my understanding from other countries is that HSBC really focuses on kind of higher income clients on the retail side.
I wanted to ask if that's the case as well for Uruguay. In general, given that I assume this is more of a commercial bank, I wanted to ask if going forward, you would be kind of interested in that target size, in kind of a commercial bank or potential M&A, either in Brazil or outside of Brazil. Thanks.
Hi, Nicolas. Thank you for the question. Regarding the refinancing of the bonds, I think we always manage that. We have the maturity in January. We work with excess cash all the time in order to be able to either repay. We are always looking at opportunities if we would refinance or repay that bond depending on market conditions. I think the same will apply for AT1. We will look at the local spreads, right? The local spreads were, in our view, favorable for us to use more AT1 capital in our balance sheet. We took that opportunity and we increased the usage of AT1 as part of our total Basel ratio, right?
On your second question regarding Uruguay, yes, the HSBC Uruguay franchise is focused mainly on high income. It has five branches, which to some extent are similar to the regional offices that we have in Brazil. Four of these five branches actually have a cashier, so they resemble a more traditional, let's say, bank branch with a security need and all that, which will be a different experience for us. We thought it was a good fit for it because, as you mentioned, this one, focused on high-income retail, two, a very digital bank, three, five branches, and four, a big Wealth Management business also there. This is not to say that we will not analyze other opportunities if they appear, but we thought this was a very specific one that fit what we're building, which is a digital full-service bank.
Thanks very much. Thank you.
Thank you. That brings us to the end of the question and answer session. I will now return the floor to Mr. Roberto Sallouti for his closing remarks.
I want to thank you all once again, especially for your partnership and trust. Thank you for being present in our second quarter call. Looking forward to talk to all of you once again in three months' time. Thank you very much. Have a great rest of the week.
Thank you. This does conclude today's presentation. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a nice day.