Bocaina Capital

Flavio Terni, as founding partner and portfolio manager, leads investment decisions alongside co-founder Pedro Henrique Chermont. Terni built his expertise over a decade in Latin American equity derivatives and structuring at JPMorgan and UBS, where he rose to head of the region's equity derivatives desk before launching Bocaina in 2011. The firm's senior investment team operates with a flat partnership structure typical of independent Brazilian asset managers.

Bocaina's private credit arm focuses on senior secured lending to Brazilian middle-market companies and litigation finance tied to judicial claims. The strategy targets high-teen returns by lending against collateral and cash flows in situations where commercial bank capital is constrained or unavailable. This niche requires specialized structuring capability, which the firm developed from Terni's derivatives and structured-products background at global banks.

The firm manages commingled vehicles for its liquid long-short equity strategy and its private credit strategy, each with distinct liquidity terms. Investors cannot move capital freely between the two platforms; they commit separately to the hedge fund vehicle or the private credit fund series. This structure reflects the different redemption profiles of liquid equity and multi-year private loans.

Most Brazilian independent managers commit exclusively to either liquid markets or private credit. Bocaina operates both under one roof, letting the investment team shift focus between liquid relative-value trades and multi-year private loans based on the domestic cycle. The combination gives the firm a broader opportunity set and a sourcing advantage in litigation finance, where structuring skills from Terni's derivatives career provide an edge.

Bocaina provides financing to plaintiffs or law firms pursuing complex civil claims in Brazilian courts, typically against government entities or large corporations. These cases often involve tax refunds, contract disputes, or regulatory compensation, where the legal claim has high merit but resolution takes years. Bocaina structures the financing as a senior secured loan repaid from the final award or settlement, pricing for the duration and judicial risk in ways that generic credit funds cannot replicate.

The firm's investments concentrate in Brazil's major economic centers — São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte — reflecting where middle-market borrowers and judicial claims cluster. On the equity side, the long-short book focuses on Brazilian mid-to-large cap companies with liquid instruments. Private credit deals serve companies in domestic sectors including services, infrastructure, and government-contract finance.

As a São Paulo-based independent manager, Bocaina likely serves a mix of Brazilian family offices, wealth managers, and institutional allocators, though the firm does not publicly disclose its fund-level limited partners or capital-raising milestones. Its structure as a commingled-fund manager rather than a single-family vehicle suggests it sources third-party capital rather than deploying exclusively partner wealth.