Officially retired as Banco Central do Brasil’s governor, Fraga has attended a few international conferences but declines to discuss Lula’s economic stewardship. In fact, his highest-profile appearance has been a skit on a popular Brazilian TV comedy, Casseta e Planeta, in May, playing a taxi driver who’s also an economics whiz. Now eager to tackle something more serious, Fraga, 45, is returning to what he was doing before he joined the government in 1999: running a hedge fund. No, he’s not going back to work for his old boss, George Soros; he’s starting his own venture. “It will be an international hedge fund, i.e., an absolute-return fund, focused mainly on the emerging markets,” he tells II. Given his performance at the central bank, Fraga should have no trouble raising money from overseas investors.
