The bank’s asset management arm, which has assets under management of about €250bn (£199bn; $316bn), has been operating in Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo, since 2010.
Jacob Lundquist, senior executive adviser to the global head of institutional and wholesale distribution at Nordea, said: “We are seeing huge interest from large Brazilian pension funds after they started investing outside their home market, initially in some index products but also in global equities.”
He said Nordea had also built up a team in Singapore to cover its Asian activities, headed by Philippe Graffart, former head of product support at Nordea Investment Funds Luxembourg.
He also said the Middle East was “very exciting for us and we do this on a fly-in, fly-out basis at the moment”.
“Nordea has a natural base in the four Nordic countries but we are in the middle of a big change now. The institutional markets in the Nordics are very mature and, at the same time, a lot is happing in Europe and the rest of the world.”
He added that Nordea was constantly scanning for new opportunities but that it was important to go into a new market in a prudent way.
