Last month, Santander’s Brazilian subsidiary broke the country’s record for the largest IPO just as the nation was revelling in the success of its Olympic bid. As a result, Brazil looked even more likely to emerge from the global crisis as the darling of international investors.

Even before the $8.1bn listing, the country had still managed to overtake the UK and Saudi Arabia as well as China and the US for a brief period in the national rankings of exchanges for global IPOs this year, according to data from Dealogic.