Credit Suisse-Backed WeLab Is Said to Plan $500 Million IPO
Credit Suisse-Backed Online Lender Said to Plan $500 Million IPO
(Bloomberg) -- An online lender backed by Credit Suisse Group AG is working on a listing just weeks after closing a private funding round.
WeLab Ltd. has picked banks to advise on a Hong Kong initial public offering that could raise about $500 million, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The China-focused lender, whose backers also include billionaire Li Ka-shing, is aiming to list as soon as next year, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.
The company is preparing an offering as Chinese authorities intensify a crackdown on one part of the country’s fintech industry that offers short-term, high-interest loans to borrowers with poor credit histories. News that China has halted further approvals for online micro-lenders has already driven down the New York shares of firms like Qudian Inc. and PPDAI Group Inc.
Billionaire Li’s CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd. is the largest shareholder in TOM Group Ltd., which was among investors in a $20 million fundraising round for WeLab in 2015. TOM Group shares were up 2 percent at 10:54 a.m. Friday in Hong Kong, the biggest intraday gain since Nov. 14, while the benchmark Hang Seng Index gained 0.4 percent.
Alibaba Fund
No final decisions on an IPO have been made, and there’s no certainty the deliberations will result in a transaction, the people said. A representative for WeLab declined to comment.
The Hong Kong-based company raised $220 million of private funding earlier this month. The World Bank’s International Finance Corp. and the Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, backed by China’s biggest e-commerce operator, were among investors that participated.
WeLab runs a mobile app that analyzes users’ phone habits to assess creditworthiness, often making a decision within a day. The company’s lending rate is “on average about 10 percent to 20 percent annualized,” Chief Executive Officer Simon Loong said last year.
The company has also attracted investments from Sequoia Capital and Malaysian sovereign fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd. The firm, which operates the Wolaidai platform in China and the WeLend service in Hong Kong, has 25 million users and has processed $28 billion of loans since it was founded in 2013, its website shows.
To contact the reporters on this story: Crystal Tse in Hong Kong at ctse44@bloomberg.net, Lulu Yilun Chen in Hong Kong at ychen447@bloomberg.net, Jonathan Browning in Hong Kong at jbrowning9@bloomberg.net, Alfred Liu in Hong Kong at aliu226@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Scent at bscent@bloomberg.net, Robert Fenner at rfenner@bloomberg.net, Marcus Wright at mwright115@bloomberg.net, Timothy Sifert
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