Issuer: Mapfre
Date: August 1998
Amount: $155 million (equity)
Arranger: JP Morgan
Spain’s leading publicly-quoted insurance company, Corporaci÷n Mapfre, is not the type of issuer that would normally seek to raise equity finance through a private placement. That is generally the route taken by small, recently-formed and fast-growing companies in sectors like media, telecoms and technology, rather than by large established multinationals. But last summer, Mapfre chose a private placement of equity to finance the growth of its Latin American operation, Mapfre America, which has grown quickly in recent years into the largest foreign-owned insurance company in the region.
JP Morgan, acting as sole private equity placement agent, arranged the large and complex transaction. It was a deal that pulled together JP Morgan’s corporate financiers in Madrid, its Latin American M&A group and its New-York-based private equity placement team.
The challenge for Corporaci÷n Mapfre was to finance its expansion plans in Latin America in a way that would not alienate its existing public shareholders. Although Mapfre’s international operations hold out some promise of exciting growth, they have so far failed to return a profit.