Trustee, Banvox fund assets shrink 65% amid Master probes

The main investment vehicles administered by Trustee DTVM and Banvox DTVM, which came under investigation in connection with the Banco Master case, have seen their assets fall sharply over the past year.

The two securities distributors are owned by Maurício Quadrado, a former partner of Daniel Vorcaro at Banco Master. Both were investigated in Operation “Carbono Oculto” (Hidden Carbon) in August last year, while Quadrado was targeted by a search-and-seizure warrant in the second phase of Operation Compliance Zero.

Since then, combined assets in funds administered by the two firms have fallen 65%, from R$86.7 billion in July 2025.

Trustee, which provided services to funds that held investments by businessman Nelson Tanure, administered R$66.9 billion at the time. That figure had dropped to R$23.2 billion by the end of July 2026. Banvox’s total fell to R$7.5 billion from R$19.8 billion, according to data from the Brazilian Financial and Capital Markets Association (Anbima).

Fund transfers

Planner Corretora took over administration of some of the largest vehicles, which are managed by Redwood. Both belong to the B100 controlling group. They include Bordeaux FIP Multiestratégia, a private equity fund with R$2.5 billion in net assets that controls Ligga Telecom, formerly Copel Telecom, and Ilha de Patmos FIM, with R$2 billion in assets.

Redwood said it has no commercial relationship with Trustee or Banvox.

“Changes in service providers are a natural market development resulting from decisions made independently by fund shareholders. Every fund taken over by Redwood undergoes a rigorous due diligence and internal approval process in line with our governance policy,” the asset manager said in a statement.

Redwood declined to comment on specific funds, noting that the information is publicly available from the Securities and Exchange Commission of Brazil (CVM).

LAD Capital took over Esna FIP Multiestratégia several months ago. The fund holds stakes in Ambipar and Phoenix FIP Multiestratégia. Phoenix, in turn, invests in Esna and was the Tanure fund used in the acquisition of Empresa Metropolitana de Águas e Energia (Emae) during its privatization.

Luiz Felipe Terra Favieri, managing partner at LAD Capital, said the firm was approached by one of the shareholders, Braslight, the pension fund for employees of power utility Light, because of LAD’s expertise in recovering distressed assets.

“We have completed the assessment and are now revaluing the fund’s entire portfolio and conducting valuations of all its portfolio companies,” Favieri said.

Braslight’s investment in Phoenix FIP represented 6.5% of its total investments, Pipeline, Valor’s business website, reported in October 2025.

Tanure exposure

A person close to Tanure said that since late 2024, the businessman had been transferring or redeeming assets held under Trustee and moving them to other asset managers and administrators with which he had long worked. Only a few fund vehicles with no assets remained at Trustee.

Tanure was a major Banco Master client. He placed cash from his portfolio companies with the institution and made co-investments with Vorcaro. The bank’s collapse triggered a series of losses.

A significant share of the money was invested in Ambipar shares, in a position once valued at R$1.5 billion. That value fell to R$100 million as Ambipar faced a separate crisis.

Tanure also lost his Emae shares after XP took enforcement action against them; the shares were subsequently acquired by Sabesp. He has opened a legal dispute over the matter.

The Kyra equity fund, with nearly R$900 million in assets, now appears in the fund database under Blue Solutions Asset Management. Its portfolio also includes Ambipar shares.

One of Banvox’s largest funds was FIDC Voiter Consignado II, a receivables fund with R$581.3 million in assets. Voiter is the former name of Banco Pleno, which was part of the Master conglomerate and was also liquidated by the Central Bank.

Regulatory history

Banvox has previously been the subject of three administrative sanctioning proceedings at the CVM.

In the first, opened in 2018, the securities distributor — then called CM Capital Markets — was investigated for a “failure to act loyally in the interests of shareholders of funds under its administration.”

A second proceeding, in 2019, involved irregularities in the issuance and distribution of debentures and Real Estate Receivables Certificates (CRIs), as did the most recent case, opened in 2020.

Trustee has been the subject of four CVM administrative sanctioning proceedings, all involving irregularities in the issuance and distribution of debentures. One was opened in 2017, two in 2018 and another in 2019.

Liquidation impact

The liquidation proceedings involving Trustee and Banvox are not comparable, however, to what happened with the Master conglomerate, Favieri said.

Master was a multiple bank that raised debt and distributed Bank Deposit Certificates (CDBs) to retail investors through investment platforms.

“These are companies that provide financial services to the market itself, so the impact on individual investors is somewhat smaller,” Favieri said.

Because investment funds have a separate legal identity from their service providers, transferring portfolios to other institutions should, in principle, be relatively straightforward, he added.

The shareholders own the assets and can choose a new administrator at any time through a shareholder meeting. Under the special liquidation regime, however, the process may take longer until the liquidator has fully assessed the situation.

(Beth Koike contributed reporting.)