Or so say some newspaper accounts -- their versions differ widely, however. Banco Itau, Brazil's second largest private bank, has expressed interest in buying the Latin American private-banking business of Spanish financial-service giant Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA).

"[We are] studying the purchase of the Latin American private-banking operations of [BBVA]," says Itau. If such a deal were to take form, Itau adds, its European subsidiary would take the point.

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Media estimates of such a deal's value -- from under $100 million to sometwhere in the neighborhood of $1 billion -- are based on widely divergent views of what Itau might be picking up. Similarly, reports differ in their assessments of the likelihood of such a deal ever materializing.

A few months back BBVA's head of private banking told Reuters that the Spanish bank was keen to boost its presence in Latin America's wealth-management market.

Spain's Banco Santander has expressed its interest in acquiring the Miami private banking operations of BBVA.

Itau bought ABN Amro's Montevideo, Uruguay- and Miami-based private-banking operations early in 2007.

In addition to Brazil, Latin America's largest economy, Itau operates in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Its global network extends to the Bahamas, Hong Kong, the Cayman Islands, Lisbon, London, Luxembourg, Miami, New York, Tokyo and Shanghai. -FWR

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