Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
PicPay, a Brazilian fintech owned by the billionaire Batista brothers, has raised $434mn through an initial public offering in New York that valued the digital lender at about $2.5bn.
The Netherlands-based holding group for PicPay on Wednesday evening said the shares were sold for $19 apiece, at the top end of a target price range.
For beef barons Wesley and Joesley Batista, the transaction represents another milestone after securing long-sought approval for a US listing of JBS, their family’s global meatpacking giant.
The siblings are among the most influential businessmen in Brazil but their sway extends well beyond its borders.
A JBS subsidiary was the single largest donor to Donald Trump’s inauguration and Joesley met the US president last year as part of lobbying efforts for Brazilian trade interests.
PicPay’s float also marks the first major IPO of a Brazilian business in more than four years, following the New York Stock Exchange debut of digital lender Nubank in December 2021. Shares in PicPay are due to start trading on Nasdaq on Thursday.
With real interest rates in Brazil among the highest in the world, no new companies have joined the country’s B3 bourse since September 2021.
Founded in 2012 as a digital wallet for mobile payments, PicPay was in a vanguard of start-ups that disrupted banking in Latin America’s largest economy over the past decade. It was acquired by the Batistas in 2015.
Its rival Nubank is Brazil’s most valuable financial institution with a market capitalisation of more than $90bn.
PicPay has diversified into an array of financial services, such as cards, loans, insurance and payment terminals. It has a banking licence in Brazil and 66mn customers.
Lossmaking until 2023, the group’s net profit reached R$313.8mn ($60mn) in the first nine months of 2025, up 82 per cent on a year before. Revenues were R$7.26bn in the period.
Bicycle, a growth equity fund established by Bolivian-born billionaire and former top SoftBank executive Marcelo Claure, had been expected to put $75mn into the flotation.
The stock sale by J&F, the Batistas’ holding conglomerate, reduced its stake in PicPay to about 70 per cent but their control is buttressed through supervoting shares. The family’s sprawling business empire calls itself Brazil’s largest private sector employer, with activities ranging from pulp and energy to mining and cosmetics.