FRESH is Notre Dame's freshman stock pitch competition, where teams research a publicly traded company, build a full equity model, and present their investment thesis to a panel of finance professionals. Our seven-person group covered MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI).
Our model captured MercadoLibre's two-sided business: the e-commerce marketplace dominant across Latin America, and Mercado Pago — its high-growth fintech arm handling payments, credit, and digital banking across the region. LTM revenue was $28.9B, with NTM consensus projecting 29% growth to $37.3B.
Our thesis was built on a relative valuation discount. At 18.5x NTM EV/EBITDA, MELI was trading at a discount to its peer median of 19.6x despite materially stronger growth and a longer LatAm runway than comparable U.S.-listed names. We argued that Mercado Pago represented an unpriced catalyst — a fintech business that, if valued independently, would imply meaningful upside to the current trading price.
FRESH was my first experience pitching a stock in a competitive format and defending valuation assumptions under real pressure. It pushed me to go beyond surface-level analysis and develop a thesis I could actually defend — not just present.
Key Contributions
- —Built a full equity research model on MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI) capturing $28.9B in LTM revenue and a 29% NTM growth outlook across e-commerce and fintech segments
- —Identified a relative valuation discount at 18.5x NTM EV/EBITDA vs. peer median of 19.6x, despite MELI's superior LatAm market penetration and Mercado Pago fintech growth
- —Presented a long investment thesis to a panel of Notre Dame finance professionals, defending DCF and comparable company analyses under live Q&A
Presentation