HispanicBusiness

Brightstar Corp., which in June topped the Hispanic Business 500 list of the nation's largest Hispanic-owned companies, has traded a significant portion of itself in exchange for the capital to continue its rapid growth.

The wireless equipment seller announced Monday that Lindsay Goldberg, a New York-based investment partnership, has provided $283 million in equity financing. According to Brightstar, this infusion will allow Brightstar to continue to fund its global infrastructure expansion.

Brightstar is the world's largest wireless phone distribution and supply chain solutions company, and is aggressively expanding into North America, Southeast Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Brightstar distributes in 49 countries and that number may increase to 60 to 65 within the next five years, says founder and CEO R. Marcelo Claure.

Brightstar, which was founded in 1997, has posted annual revenue increases of more than 50 percent for nine consecutive years. In 2006, Brightstar posted revenues of $3.6 billion, which earned it the No. 1 spot on this year's Hispanic Business 500. Brightstar's revenues will likely grow by another billion dollars this year, Mr. Claure predicted, and its five-year plan calls for $10 billion in revenues, he said.

In particular, Brightstar has identified a joint venture with Tech Data Corporation in Europe, as well as further expansion in Asia and North America, as likely to see some of this additional capital.

In March, Brightstar launched its Brightstar Europe unit, formed through a joint venture with United Kingdom-based Tech Data, the largest IT distributor in Europe. U.K.-based Brightstar Europe has access to at least 10 logistics centers and 16 sales offices in the region and is the only pan-European wireless distribution business. About 75 percent of Tech Data's sales take place online. Brightstar Europe plans to use Tech Data's Web-based sales system to attract customers, promising to deliver products anywhere in 16 European nations within 24 hours.

"We want to be the No. 1 distributor in Europe within three years," Mr. Claure told Hispanic Business last month.

Mr. Claure is determined to make Brightstar No. 1 in every country where the company does business. "Just because we are the world's largest on a combined basis doesn't mean we are the largest in every country that we are in," said the 36-year-old son of a Bolivian diplomat. "In the U.S. we are No. 2. We are No. 3 or No. 4 in a lot of Asian and European countries."

The investment makes Lindsay Goldberg, which manages $5.1 billion of equity capital, the second-largest shareholder in Brightstar after Mr. Claure, who owned 60 percent of the company before this latest addition. Mitsui & Co. Ltd., a Japanese trade and manufacturing conglomerate, is now Brightstar's third-largest shareholder. In August 2006, Mitsui invested $50 million in Brightstar and took a seat on the company's board of directors.

The company had made moves toward an initial public offering of public stock in August 2004, but withdrew that application to Nasdaq two months later citing market conditions. "So far, we have been able to convince private investors to value us the exact same as comparable companies are valued on Wall Street. The reason is that this company has experienced incredible growth," Mr. Claure has said.

Gabriel Advisors LLC and Morgan Stanley acted as financial adviser to Lindsay Goldberg and Cicerone Capital acted as financial adviser to Brightstar on this transaction.