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Today was mostly a travel day for the LendIt China tour attendees. We were able to visit the Jimubox office...
Ping An Insurance Group's online lender Lufax reported that it is now profitable and is hoping to keep that trend for the rest of the year; "Lufax's development is extremely robust. It actually turned around in the first half. We are very confident that it could stay profitable for the full-year," said Jessica Tan Sin-Yin, Ping An's chief operating officer and chief information officer, during the Chinese insurance group's earnings announcement; Lufax is the largest P2P lending platform in China with $225 billion of outstanding loans; according to their latest funding round in January the company is valued at $18.5 billion with 43% being held by Ping An; the company is planning to go public soon and according to CEO Gregory Gibb they have done a lot of homework for Hong Kong ahead of the potential listing. Source
One of China’s largest online lenders has shelved their IPO because of the regulatory crackdown on online lending; the FT reports that Lufax is waiting until the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) required online lenders to apply for a license; the current thinking is the government will approve licenses in April, though the time frame could be a bit longer; Lufax wants to ensure they get it right instead of rushing to be first. Source.
Shanghai-based marketplace lender, Lufax, has announced it will be expanding its business into Hong Kong and Singapore; firm also announced plans in September for a Hong Kong-listed IPO which is expected to raise approximately $5 billion; company will leverage its relationship with Ping An for the expansion; funding for the expansion will also be supported by a $1.2 billion fundraise from earlier in the year. Source
The $1.3 billion round was led by private equity firm Primavera Capital and reportedly included Qatar Investment Authority, All-Stars Investment,...
In business for six years, Lufax has expanded to meet a growing market demand for fintech products in China with a number of factors helping its success; beginning as a P2P lending firm with the support of Ping An the firm has been able to expand its business to wealth management and overall sees an underserved domestic market of over one billion people interested in the firm's solutions; it now has over 25.5 million registered users, RMB390.92 billion ($57 billion) of retail assets and RMB111.65 billion ($16 billion) of loans under management; it has been able to successfully navigate the market challenges with help from Ping An and is now approaching an even more global introduction through its potential initial public offering expected for later this year in Hong Kong which could raise approximately $5 billion for the firm. Source
In an interview on November 7, CEO Gregory Gibb of Lufax, China's largest P2P lender and wealth management platform, said he could envision an IPO to support worldwide expansion; he did not provide further details; reporting elsewhere claims that four banks have been selected to sponsor an IPO on the Hong Kong stock exchange; when Lufax raised US$1.2 billion in January, the company was valued at $18 billion; while the market as a whole is expected to grow between 30% and 40% in 2016, Gibb noted that increasing regulation of the industry in China should give added momentum to leaders like Lufax, which Gibb expects to grow "north of 50%" in the next year. Source
Chinese internet finance business, Lufax, is developing an online trading platform for Chinese investors that will allow them to invest in assets anywhere in the world; the firm is the world's second largest financial technology company; the trading platform it is developing will launch in 2017 and seeks to meet a demand from Chinese investors to diversify away from a depreciating yuan. Source
Lufax is one of China's leading P2P lenders with support from Ping An Insurance; it is currently planning to launch a global asset allocation platform to facilitate investment for middle income earners across Asia in 2017; the platform will build on the company's offerings in P2P lending and wealth management; Lufax is also working with four investment banks on an initial public offering in Hong Kong. Source
Though the company started off as a P2P lender, Lufax has diversified their offerings with great success and now views themselves as a Charles Schwab for the 21st century; as CEO Gregory Gibb says, "The truth is, we started there, but it represents less than 10% of our business volume today. So I think we're really very much an online wealth management platform."; Lufax focuses their business on wealth management, credit-rating services and institutional services where 60% to 70% of its solutions are based on traditional credit-rating metrics, with the remaining 30% to 40% centered on big data. Source