Nubank Stock Slides Following CEO David Vélez’s Stake Reduction

Bloomberg — Shares of Nu Holdings Ltd., the world’s biggest standalone digital bank, tumbled Thursday after co-founder and chief executive officer David Vélez sold a part of his stake in the Brazil-based firm.

Nubank, as it’s known, fell as much as 8.6% in New York trading, the most on an intra-day basis since April, before paring declines. The bank is still up 73% on the year and posted second-quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates earlier this week.

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Nubank Beats Q2 Forecast, Becomes Brazil’s Fourth-Largest Bank By Number of Customers

The neobank’s shares climbed 4% on the NYSE in after-hours trading, and expects payroll loans to become an important offering in the coming years in a lower-risk credit environment

Vélez, 41, said in an interview that he shed 3% of his shares in Nubank, his first sale since a 2021 initial public offering, for “general portfolio management” reasons. The sale will help fund growth in his philanthropic foundation that he founded last year with his wife Mariel Reyes under the banner VelezReyes+.

“I didn’t want to do this until at Nubank we could remove a lot of important doubts like: Can you ever make money? Can you keep growing? And the last three quarters have been phenomenal,” Velez said Wednesday. “So now I’m taking 3% of the chips off the table to start increasing in investing in the other side of the big mission that is driving us today.”

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Nubank Seeks to Increase Customer Loyalty With Ebanx Partnership

The partnership will allow the use of NuPay for purchases from international companies such as Airbnb and Spotify, and which is expected to expand the usage of the neobank’s payment method

Another co-founder, Cristina Junqueira, also sold shares earlier this year.

The digital bank that also operates in Mexico and Colombia has 11 buy recommendations from analysts with 6 holds and 2 sells, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

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Fewer Brands Will Be a Gateway to the Internet, Nubank’s David Vélez Predicts

The CEO and co-founder of Nubank spoke at the Web Summit Rio this week and predicted a future in which fewer brands will be a gateway to consumers

*Story corrected Aug 17 at 16:04ET to remove text from unrelated story.

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