Itaúsa - Who we are

Itaúsa was founded to centralize the financial and strategic decisions of a group of companies and give them better conditions to expand. It is currently the second-largest private Brazilian group in terms of revenues. Itaúsa operates in the financial and industrial areas and also manages large institutions of a social nature.

The history of the Group began with the first investment bank to be founded in Brazil. It was called Banco Federal Itaú de Investimentos S.A. and was created on May 6, 1965, shortly after the Brazilian Central Bank gave permission for this kind of activity. It was a limited liability listed company which would take stakes or make loans in the medium and long term to provide fixed or variable capital by investing its own resources, as well as in the raising, intermediation and investment of resources of third parties, and other activities which the monetary authorities had given approval to.

In November 1970, it changed its official name to Banco Itaú de Investimento S.A. and in May 1973 to Banco Itaú Português de Investimento S.A. It expanded its operations into the specific areas of investment banking. At the same time it accumulated a large equity portfolio and became a substantial shareholder in a number of Itaú´s financing institutions. As these institutions grew, it became a complex task for Banco Itaú Português de Investimento S.A. to maintain its bipolar approach to its operations, both as the holding company of the group and as an investment bank.

As a result, it reformulated its objectives and ceased its investment bank activities in order to become the leading company within the Instituições Financeiras Itaú, a holding company which at that time grouped more than 50 companies. Approval was given at the General Meeting held on December 9, 1974 for the name to be changed to Investimentos Itaú S.A. The business objective was to provide support to private Brazilian companies in which it had a capital share.

At a General Meeting held on April 30, 1991, the official name was changed to Itaúsa - Investimentos Itaú S.A. The name Itaúsa - Investimentos Itaú was adopted from 1991, thereby incorporating the "Itaúsa" tag which the market valued.

Itaúsa is currently one of the biggest corporate groups in the world. It was ranked in 288th place by Fortune magazine in a list published in July 2007, 127 positions higher than the previous year´s ranking. It is the second-largest privately-owned group in Brazil in terms of the volume of revenues.

The main companies which Itaúsa controls are leaders in their business areas: Itaú Unibanco Banco Múltiplo S.A. and its subsidiaries Itaú Unibanco and Banco Itaú BBA in the financial segment and Duratex, Itautec and Elekeiroz, leaders in their respective industrial areas.

As a listed pure holding company, Itaúsa concentrates all its financial and strategic decisions on providing the companies within the Group with the best condition to operate and expand their business. As a result, the subsidiaries have achieved high levels of productivity, employee training and technological breakthroughs to constantly improve the products and services they offer to the market.

This model also ensures that the principles which guide the holding company are also practiced by the Group companies. Appreciating human capital, ethics in business and value creation for the shareholders are the unquestionable values which direct the work of more than 108,000 employees of Itaúsa and its subsidiaries.

The way in which Itaúsa develops and manages each of its businesses was reflected once again in the excellent results the Group obtained in 2009. January to September of 2009, shareholders´ equity amounted to R$ 55.9 billion and it had assets of R$ 619.9 billion. Net income in the year came to R$ 8.2 billion with a return on average shareholders´ equity of 20.9%.

On November 3, 2008, Itaú and Unibanco signed the agreement for the merger of their financial operations. It was the formal beginning of the building of the largest conglomerate in the Southern Hemisphere, with a market value among the 20 largest financial institutions in the world.

The integration of Unibanco branches into Itaú’s platform started in August 2009. After the pilot project, which involved four branches and one service center, the expectation is that this process will continue until the end of 2010. In the third quarter, the employees training program aimed at integrating Itaú and Unibanco operations focused on the Companies, Individuals, Wealth Management Services, Operational Risk and Efficiency, and Audit areas. 65,590 training hours were provided to the 3,705 employees who attended it.

As one of the integration benefits, the customers of Itaú Unibanco started to count on an even more intricate service structure all over the country, and with new options of easier access to credit and financial services. Behind the expansion of the service structure, there are also deep changes in progress, with the adoption of the best management and business practices and the integration of talents from both institutions.

After over 15 months in gestation through dialogues, Itaú Unibanco is born with a strong identity in values and a converging vision for the future. For this purpose, Itaúsa and the controlling stockholders of Unibanco Holding decided to establish a holding company with a shared governance model.

The conglomerate resulting from the merger has scale, expertise and a strong capital basis, which enable it to significantly reinforce the credit supply to the market, corresponding to the expectations of a sound and vigorous response to the demands from companies and individuals.

To the effect of giving a dimension of its potential, Itaú Unibanco will be the Brazilian financial institution with the highest market capitalization.

Itautec - Itaú Tecnologia S.A. which is part of the Group´s industrial area was founded in 1979 as a result of Banco Itaú´s need to develop technology specifically for its branches. Thanks to this initiative, Itaú has been able to establish its self-service network with equipment and software developed and manufactured by Itautec since the 1980s.

Nowadays, Itautec provides a complete line of products for the corporate and domestic market: microcomputers, servers, storage devices (data warehousing), automatic banking and sales machines, self service and technical assistance, infrastructure, installations and outsourcing (managing information technology services). It has over 5,000 employees distributed between its plant at Jundiaí, São Paulo state, the administrative offices in the city of São Paulo, along with 34 units and seven laboratories throughout Brazil. It also has subsidiaries in a number of countries. Itautec has 6% of the formal domestic market for personal computers and laptops in Brazil and is the Brazilian IT company with the largest presence abroad.

Duratex S.A. Indústria e Comércio was founded in 1951 by businessmen Eudoro Villela, Nivaldo Coimbra de Ulhoa Cintra and Alfredo Egydio de Souza Aranha. Its first industrial plant started making wooden fiber boards three years later using Swedish technology. In 1972, it incorporated Deca, a company founded in 1947, and transformed it into the division responsible for the production of metal and bathroom fittings, vitreous china and accessories of the Deca and Hydra brands.

With the approval of the merger of Duratex and Satipel at the Shareholders’ Meetings held on each of the companies, the largest manufacturer of wood panels in the Southern Hemisphere, ranked eighth in the global market and undisputed leader in the domestic market, was created. Duratex, the company resulting from this transaction, is a Brazilian publicly-held company, with shares traded at BM&FBovespa and listed in the segment known as Novo Mercado.

Elekeiroz´s beginnings go back to the end of the 19th century with a foundation of a small pharmaceutical laboratory called Queiroz Moura & Cia. In 1912, the company became known as L. Queiroz after one of its founders. The transformation of this undertaking into a leading Brazilian chemical company was one of continuous process of change. Elekeiroz was a pioneer in the production of a number of chemical products in Brazil, such as phthalic anhydrides, carbon bi-sulfate, octanol and butanol from sugar cane and 2-thylhexoic acid, amongst others. In 2002, it assumed shareholder control of the former Ciquine Cia. Petroquímica, located in the petrochemical hub at Camaçari, Bahia state. This operation brought greater competitiveness to the current chemical situation and anticipated the current rapid and irreversible force of globalization.

RESULTS - Accumulated in Period
  2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001
ASSETS 615,962 643,201 300,036 214,433 156,339 134,233 122,330 114,649 84,472
Stockholders' Equity                  
- Controlling Company 19,786 16,592 15,676 12,842 9,754 8,879 7,636 6,389 5,055
- Conglomerate 57,956 48,283 33,933 27,245 18,764 17,199 14,759 11,837 9,683
Net Income                  
- Controlling Company 3,930 2,700 3,988 4,486 2,297 1,962 1,561 1,537 1,183
- Conglomerate 11,742 5,431 8,916 6,796 5,170 4,069 3,277 2,900 2,484
Operating Revenues 115,681 83,282 59,379 51,673 39,468 33,775 27,938 36,296 23,414
Dividends Paid                  
- Controlling Company 1,407 1,597 1,340 1,302.0 891.8 696.8 613.2 414.6 394.7
Net Income of the
Controlling Company

per  share
0.90 0.70 1.13 1.41 0.72 0.61 0.49 0.49 0.41
Book Value
of the Controlling Company

per share
4.55 4.27 4.45 4.04 3.07 2.75 2.38 2.03 1.79
Return on Equity (ROE) (%)                  
- Controlling Company 21.5 16.5 27.7 40.07 24.41 23.81 20.45 24.1 23.4
- Conglomerate 22.1 14.4 28.8 30.15 28.43 25.54 22.20 24.5 25.6

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