PagSeguro pops 36% in one of the decade's top billion-dollar debuts

Brazilian payment processor PagSeguro (PAGS) raised $2.3 billion in an upsized IPO and jumped 36% on its first day. That's one of the best debuts for a billion-dollar IPO in the last decade, coming in at #5 out of 46.

That puts it behind four other technology IPOs, Twitter (TWTR), Yandex (YNDX), Snap (SNAP) and Alibaba (BABA). Despite their initial success, Twitter and Snap currently trade below their respective 2013 and 2017 IPO prices, and Yandex is near its 2011 first-day close. Alibaba has returned 188% since its 2014 IPO.



A leading player in Brazil's SME market, PagSeguro benefits from strong secular growth in online and mobile payments. It grew sales by 133% in the most recent quarter, with a net margin above 20%. PagSeguro lets investors own a company in a large market with fast growth, high margins and a clean balance sheet.

PagSeguro's pop follows a flop from ADT (ADT), which last week had one of the billion-dollar club's worst debuts. Its -12% first-day decline was the third-worst of the 46 IPOs billion-dollar IPOs of the past decade, ahead of only two Chinese companies (ZTO Express (ZTO) and Shanda Games (GAME)).

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