MercadoLibre to Raise $1.85 Billion in Equity Offerings
March 11 2019 - 4:25PM
MercadoLibre, Inc. (NASDAQ: MELI), Latin America’s leading
e-commerce technology company, today announced that it intends to
offer approximately US$1 billion of common stock. MercadoLibre also
intends to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to
$150 million of additional shares of common stock. In addition,
MercadoLibre has entered into an agreement pursuant to which PayPal
has committed to make a $750 million strategic investment through
the purchase of common stock. In a separate agreement, an affiliate
of Dragoneer Investment Group has agreed to purchase $100 million
of Series A perpetual convertible preferred stock. The PayPal and
Dragoneer investments are contingent upon the closing of the public
offering and are expected to close at the same time or shortly
after the public offering.
“Over the past 20 years, we have heavily invested in developing
the preeminent e-commerce and FinTech ecosystem in Latin America,”
said Marcos Galperin, CEO of Mercado Libre. “We are excited to
welcome these investments which will allow us to significantly
accelerate our growth. We look forward to accelerating our
leadership in ecommerce and payments and foster financial inclusion
in Latin America as a result of our alliance with a global leader
in the industry such as PayPal.”
The company intends to use the proceeds to continue expanding
its e-commerce platform, to strengthen its logistics
infrastructure, and to invest in solutions that further solidify
the company’s position as a powerful provider of inclusive
end-to-end financial technology and payments solutions.
“Digital commerce in Latin America is experiencing tremendous
growth and MercadoLibre is well-positioned for continued
leadership,” said Dan Schulman, President and CEO, PayPal. “We’ve
been impressed with the digital commerce and payments ecosystem
Marcos and his team have built. We see great opportunities to
integrate our respective capabilities to create unique and valuable
payment experiences for our combined 500 million customers
throughout the region and around the world.”
“Through its investments in FinTech, logistics, and customer
experience, MercadoLibre is solidifying its leading market position
in e-commerce and digital payments across Latin America, and we
believe we are witnessing a major tipping point in the region,”
said Marc Stad, Founder and Managing Partner of Dragoneer
Investment Group, “We’ve known Marcos and his team for over a
decade and are thrilled to partner with them through this high
growth and transformative period.” During 2018, MercadoLibre sold
more than 334 million items, amounting to over US$12 billion of
gross merchandise volume (GMV). Payment transactions on
MercadoPago, its payments business unit, increased by 70% during
2018, totaling 389 million transactions and US$18 billion of total
payment volume (TPV).
Goldman Sachs is acting as sole financial advisor to
MercadoLibre on the PayPal and Dragoneer investments, and Cleary
Gottlieb is serving as MercadoLibre’s legal advisor. Goldman Sachs,
J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley are acting as joint bookrunners on
the public equity offering.
About MercadoLibre
Founded in 1999, MercadoLibre is the leading e-commerce company
in Latin America. Through its six integrated ecommerce platforms
including MercadoLibre, MercadoPago and MercadoEnvíos, it offers
technology solutions that enable companies and individuals to buy,
sell, announce, send and pay for goods and services over the
internet. MercadoLibre serves millions of users, providing
compelling technology-based solutions that democratize commerce and
money, thus contributing to the development of a large and growing
digital economy MercadoLibre is among the top 50 most visited
websites in the world in terms of page views, and it is the
ecommerce platform with the most unique visitors in each country
where it operates.
CONTACT:MercadoLibre, Inc.Investor
Relationsinvestor@mercadolibre.com http://investor.mercadolibre.com
MercadoLibre, Inc. has filed a registration statement (including
a prospectus) with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”)
for the offering to which this communication relates. Before you
invest, you should read the prospectus in that registration
statement and other documents the issuer has filed with the SEC for
more complete information about the issuer and this offering. You
may get these documents for free by visiting EDGAR on the SEC Web
site at www.sec.gov. Alternatively, the issuer, any underwriter or
any dealer participating in the offering will arrange to send you
the prospectus if you request it from Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC,
Attention: Prospectus Department, 200 West Street, New York, NY
10282, telephone: (866) 471-2526 or email:
prospectusny@ny.email.gs.com, J.P. Morgan Securities LLC,
Attention: Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue,
Edgewood, NY 11717, email: prospectus-eq_fi@jpmchase.com or Morgan
Stanley & Co. LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 180 Varick
Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10014.
Forward-Looking Statements Any statements herein regarding
MercadoLibre, Inc. that are not historical or current facts are
forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements convey
MercadoLibre, Inc.’s current expectations or forecasts of future
events. Forward-looking statements regarding MercadoLibre, Inc.
involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors
that may cause MercadoLibre, Inc.’s actual results, performance or
achievements to be materially different from any future results,
performances or achievements expressed or implied by the
forward-looking statements. Certain of these risks and
uncertainties are described in the “Risk Factors,” “Forward-Looking
Statements” and “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking
Statements” sections of MercadoLibre, Inc.’s annual report on Form
10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018, and any of MercadoLibre,
Inc.’s other applicable filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission. Unless required by law, MercadoLibre, Inc. undertakes
no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking
statements to reflect circumstances or events after the date
hereof.
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