Wall Street in the Jungle

Over rutted Brazilian jungle trails last week jounced a task force of clay-spattered, green-and-yellow jeeps, carrying as incongruous a crew as ever penetrated the steaming wilderness. They were securities salesmen, hardy young men carrying briefcases, who were on their way to sell a 208 million-cruzeiro ($1.6 million) issue of stock in Willys Overland do Brasil to back-country natives who had never even heard of Wall Street.

Fighting dirt, dysentery and distrust, the salesmen are specialists in a unique investment operation known as Deltec S.A. Founded by a hard-driving Princetonian ('35), Clarence J. Dauphinot Jr., 44, Deltec has pioneered in raising investment capital in Brazil to develop new industries for the country and set a pattern that others are copying. Dauphinot, a onetime Wall Street foreign-bond trader, got interested in the project during trips to South America for Kidder, Peabody & Co. during World War II. He found that while Brazilian industry was starving for capital, money was stagnating in savings accounts and sewn-up mattresses. "The U.S. had been exporting all sorts of American know-how," says Dauphinot, "except a very basic one--the formation of capital-marketing techniques."

Sign the Mayor. Dauphinot left Kidder in 1946 and formed Deltec S.A. in Rio de Janeiro. Initial capitalization: about $2,500. His first deal was to sell a 15,000,000 cruzeiro ($750,000) stock issue for an American & Foreign Power Co. subsidiary. With a sales crew of 25, Dauphinot began a door-to-door selling campaign. But after six months, only about half the issue had been sold, and all but one salesman had quit. The undaunted survivor, Paulo Quartin, son of a Brazilian diplomat, doggedly kept at the job and succeeded, by year's end, in selling the remainder of the issue.

Dauphinot sold a new American & Foreign Power issue, took on the job of selling stock of other companies. He found that often the trick was to get the most prominent citizen in a village to buy. For example, when the mayor in one town bought, 17 others lined up to buy. Soon Dauphinot branched out more, became Brazil's most active stock underwriter, was doing business in New York, Colombia and Venezuela. All told, Deltec has sold stock to some 50,000 Brazilians, 80% of whom, Dauphinot estimates, had never owned stock before. The buyers put their money into such Brazilian subsidiaries as Squibb, Dunlop, Willys, General Tire, Lone Star Cement, I.T.&T. and Brazilian department-store, telephone, textile, cement and steel companies. Dauphinot's salesmen also sell investment trust shares for as little as 100 cruzeiros (77-c-).

Dividends: 25%. Most Deltec issues have paid the average Brazilian dividend or better--10%-25% of par value plus stock splits. Though its expenses are high, Deltec has found the operation profitable. The fees for underwriting a stock issue in Brazil average 15%-20% of the value of the issue (U.S. average: 2 1/2%-3%).

Deltec's success has inspired imitators; two new open-end investment funds and several Wall Street-type firms are now busily stimulating the securities market. From his marble-walled Rio office and his spacious Copacabana Beach home, Dauphinot is looking beyond Brazil for other back roads for his thundering jeep-herd to travel. Newest challenge: the undeveloped capital markets of Argentina.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.