Brazil’s Nubank Looks For Underwriters, Report Says

Brazilian digital bank Nubank is looking for investment banks to help support its initial public offering (IPO), U.S. News reported.

The company’s talks with banks are more advanced than anyone previously thought, U.S. News reported. To that effect, company Founder and CEO David Vélez had not even said there were plans to go public, although he said previously it is likely to happen at some point in the future.

Some have hypothesized that Nubank could end up being worth around $40 billion, according to U.S. News, which cited unnamed sources. Nubank is backed by the Warren Buffett company Berkshire Hathaway.

The IPO might happen by the end of this year or early in 2022, U.S. News reported. When it happens, it’s likely to be one of the bigger stock market debuts of a South American company, making it along the same lines as companies like Robinhood, similarly expected to have a big debut.

Earlier this month, Berkshire Hathaway poured $500 million into Nubank alongside a $250 million investment from Sands Capital, Brazil’s Absoluto Partners and Verde Asset Management, PYMNTS reported.

In April, Nubank was communicating with New York advisers on a potential IPO, PYMNTS reported.

“We will probably do an IPO at some point in time, but it is not among our current priorities. We have the support of an amazing group of investors that share a long-term vision on our business,” Nubank told Reuters at the time.

As of April, the company had a valuation of around $25 billion. The company was also the recipient of a $400 million Series G round from January.

In January, Co-Founder Cristina Junqueira said the company was likely to be profitable soon, PYMNTS reported.

“We’re really hopeful that 2021 is a year we’re going to be able to maybe increase our exposure on the credit side tenfold,” Junqueira said at the time.