Sparta Administradora de Recursos

Sparta Administradora de Recursos is one of the most traditional independent private credit asset managers in the country. Founded in 1993 by Victor Abou Nehmi Filho as an agricultural commodities house, it made the decisive pivot to private credit in 2010 — today 99% of its assets are in fixed income. Headquartered on R. Fidêncio Ramos in São Paulo, Sparta manages R$ 24.15 billion in AUM across 113 funds (72 operational) for more than 283 thousand unitholders, following growth of around 70% in assets under custody in 2024. On the exchange, it exposes three tax-exempt incentivized vehicles — CRAA11, CDII11, and JURO11 — which cover both ends of the indexer (CDI+ and IPCA/IMA-B 5) and high-grade agribusiness.

Track record and governance

Sparta's reputation is that of a specialist, disciplined, and conservative-profile house — awarded "Best Fixed Income Specialist Asset Manager" by Revista Exame/FGV (2023) and with nearly three decades of management navigating multiple interest rate cycles. Leadership is held by CEO Ulisses Nehmi, an electronics engineer graduated from ITA with a master's degree in Economics from FGV, who sums up the firm's philosophy in the phrase "high-grade asset managers are created by engineers, who crunch numbers and analyze." Management of the listed funds is led by Felipe Vidal, with Natalia Vieira Coura (Resolution 30), Vitor Nagata (AML), and Henrique Nakazato (Risk) completing the board. The partnership culture and extremely low turnover — partners and professionals who have worked together for over a decade — are a real differential for continuity.

The service provider structure reinforces robustness: the three funds have administration and custody at BTG Pactual Serviços Financeiros DTVM, stable since their respective IPOs, with auditing by Ernst & Young. In the 2026 events, Sparta has adopted a defensive stance, maintaining high cash for over a year in response to compressed spreads, in an environment where primary issuances have cooled and part of the credit sector has registered relevant net redemptions. Felipe Vidal himself summarizes the current picture: "the main risk is no longer default, but mark-to-market with squeezed spreads".

Strategy and funds under management

Looking at the whole, Sparta operates a unique high-grade credit thesis — issuers with robust balance sheets and high ratings — replicated in three complementary packages that give investors the choice of indexer without changing asset managers. CRAA11 (Paper Fiagro, rating 7.5) carries 122 agribusiness CRAs across 20 segments, with 90%+ of issuers billing above R$ 1 billion and zero credit events since the IPO. CDII11 (FI-Infra CDI+, rating 7.2) is the largest of the three, with R$ 2.81 billion and ~70.6 thousand unitholders, positioned to capture high Selic carry. JURO11 (FI-Infra IMA-B 5, rating 6.8) is the IPCA+ leg, more defensive via marking, with R$ 2.1 billion since its 2021 IPO.

The rating dispersion is narrow (6.8 to 7.5) and consistent with the risk of each mandate: high-grade agro leads, CDI+ comes right behind due to low mark-to-market sensitivity, and IMA-B 5 comes last precisely because it carries real interest rate risk. The consistency of tax-exempt dividends is the guiding thread — DY of 15.0% on CRAA11, ~16.5% on CDII11, and ~11.9% on JURO11 — all trading close to book value parity (P/BV 0.96 to 0.99). The funds complement each other as a tax-exempt credit allocation kit: CDII11 for high Selic, JURO11 for the cycle turn, CRAA11 for sectoral diversification in agro.

Strengths and points of attention

• Real specialization in private credit, with nearly three decades of track record and high-grade selection that sustains historically low default rates.
• Solid governance: BTG administration/custody, EY audit, and a stable partner team with low turnover.
• Coherent, tax-exempt product line covering CDI+, IPCA+, and agro, allowing investors to build an allocation without leaving the firm.
• Proactive defensive posture (high cash) in the face of compressed spreads, instead of forcing allocation.

• Public transparency of management reports for CDII11 and JURO11 is recognized as inferior to peers like BTG (BDIF11) and Kinea (KDIF11).
• Sensitivity to Selic rate cuts: the DPS of CDI+ vehicles (CDII11 and part of CRAA11) tends to recede when the cycle turns — the Focus report already projects relevant cuts.
• Mark-to-market risk assumed by the manager itself as the main vector for 2026, especially in JURO11 (IMA-B 5).
• Narrow reserves in parts of the portfolio — CRAA11's earnings reserve fell to R$ 0.02/unit in Apr/2026 and JURO11's DPS fluctuated to R$ 0.75 in the same month.

Which investor is it suitable for

Sparta tends to make sense for investors with a conservative to moderate profile who seek tax-exempt monthly income and prioritize credit quality over maximum premium. For those who want to take advantage of the high Selic window with low unit volatility, CDII11 is the firm's most direct expression; for those positioning for the interest rate cycle turn, JURO11 offers the mark-to-market leg; and CRAA11 delivers diversification in high-grade agro. What to watch: the trajectory of Selic and its effect on the DPS of CDI+ vehicles, the evolution of spreads (currently compressed) and private credit liquidity, and the granularity of disclosure — requiring more analytical patience from the unitholder than peers with more open reporting. As analytical coverage, the reading is of a technically strong and well-governed asset manager, whose main risks today are macro and mark-to-market, not credit.