Decreased venture capital funding and fintech challenges in 2016 slowed the market for initial public offerings (IPOs); experts believe the IPO market could be revived in 2017 with four companies at the top of the list to watch for a potential public offering; companies include Transferwise, SoFi, Ant Financial and Credit Karma; all four companies have significant venture capital support and are likely leaders for the fintech IPO market in 2017. Source
Ant Financial is seen as one of the world’s top fintech companies and is now reviving their plans for an...
Recent news about Chinese online lenders has caused regulators in China to begin looking at new regulations for the industry; “The public has doubts about its operating model and has appealed for it to be brought under regulation,” said Ji Zhihong, head of financial markets department at the People’s Bank of China, according to the FT; the potential regulations could hurt what has become a hot IPO market; Chinese lenders like Qudian who recently did a US based IPO and Paipaidai, Hexindai and Lexin Fintech who all have filed for potential US IPOs. Source.
Yixin Group Ltd., a Chinese online car lender, filed for a Hong Kong IPO looking to raise $900mn; the deal could value the fintech company at $6.5bn if shares price on the higher end; Yixin Group Ltd. is a unit of NY listed Bitauto and is backed by Baidu Inc., Tencent Holdings Ltd. and JD.com Inc. Source.
Shares of Qudian surged almost 48 percent on the first day of trading; the share offering raised about $900mn, making it the largest Chinese listing in the US this year; reaching as high as $35.45 the company ended the day at $29.86; Qudian extends loans to millennials and students for small ticket items like smartphones or concert tickets. Source.
Alibaba announced it was taking a 33 percent stake in their fintech affiliate Ant Financial; the agreement allows for Alibaba to pick of shares of Ant Financial and also ends the revenue share agreement they had in place; TechCrunch reports the deal was focused on “certain intellectual property rights owned by Alibaba exclusively related to Ant Financial.”; Alibaba saw their shares drop after the announcement and many think this is a prelude to Ant Financial’s IPO. Source.
UK based Arrowgrass will offer investors fintech exposure through a new vehicle listed on the AIM Market; the $97mn IPO named TruFin, is the first time investors will have access to one of the country’s p2p platforms in Zopa; “Listing on AIM will allow us to provide further capital to our subsidiaries and scale faster, and take advantage of any developments in the current financial services market,” said Henry Kenner, chief executive officer of TruFin plc, to AltFi. Source.
Recent IPO filings by some Chinese unicorns has revealed companies who misrepresented the amount they raised in venture funding; Jianpu Technology is reported to have inflated their capital raising's and Qudian is under pressure for potentially disclosing incorrect bad-loan ratios; Chinese regulators have begun looking more closely at consumer lenders and the recent surge in potential IPOs might take a hit with the bad news trend. Source.
One of China’s leading online wealth management companies Lufax is looking to go public in Hong Kong at a $60bn valuation; the South China Morning Post reports the company intends to file their application by the end of January; Lufax was last valued at $18bn in 2016, they have more than 33 million users and over $75bn in assets under management. Source.
Last year’s batch of Chinese IPOs did not perform well and ended up losing almost $1bn worth of shareholder money; there is an expectation that the number of Chinese IPOs will jump 30 percent in 2018; Qudian, one of the biggest from a year ago, has seen their stock plummet by more than 50 percent; expectations and the Chinese government crackdown on online lending has really hurt the prospects of some companies looking to list. Source.