Brazil's money managers have more to celebrate these days than just being part of one of the world's best-performing economies. On April 30, Standard & Poor's upgraded the nation's long-term foreign currency debt to investment grade. The change is of particular importance to institutional investors that are not allowed to invest in an emerging-markets country’s bonds if they are not investment grade, according to José Brazuna, general manager of the asset management division at the National Association of Investment Banks, a São Paulo–based trade organization.

"We will have a lot of foreign pension funds that will come to Brazil to invest," agrees Ricardo Mizukawa, a product management specialist at Bradesco Asset Management in São Paulo. "That will be a big change."

Money managers are also hoping the credit rating upgrade will spur investors to choose equities over fixed-income instruments, which have been more popular owing to the country's high interest rates; the benchmark Selic interest rate currently stands at 11.75 percent but had reached 19.75 percent as recently as 2005.

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