Chinese fintech firm Qudian impresses in US market debut

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‍Shares of Qudian Inc. rose as much as 48 percent in their market debut on Wednesday, valuing the online micro-credit firm at about 11.67 billion dollars in the biggest US listing by a Chinese company this year.

Qudian’s initial public offering was priced at 24 dollars per American depository share (ADS) - topping its expected 19 dollars to 22 dollars per ADS range - and raised 900 million dollars.

US exchanges are set to record their busiest year for IPOs from Asian companies since 2010, as startups from Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam join a flurry of Chinese firms that have already listed in the country.

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Qudian, backed by Alibaba Group affiliate Ant Financial, runs a mobile platform that allows college students and young workers to borrow amounts as low as 60 dollars to buy apparel, concert tickets or smartphones.

The company targets hundreds of millions of young Chinese who need access to small credit, but cannot go to traditional financial institutions, mainly for lack of traditional credit data.

Founded in 2014 by Luo Min, Qudian became profitable last year. It provided 5.6 billion dollars of credit in the first half of 2017 to 7 million active borrowers, according to its IPO paperwork with US regulators.

Qudian’s profit jumped almost eight times to 144 million dollars in the six months ended June 30, while its revenue rose near five-fold to 270 million dollars.

Qudian sold 35.63 million new shares, while shareholders including Kunlun Group and board directors Du Li and Cao Yi sold 1.88 million existing shares.

The company plans to use the IPO proceeds on advertising to sign up more borrowers, as well as on potential acquisitions and general corporate purposes.

Citigroup, China International Capital Corp, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and UBS worked as joint bookrunners on the IPO.

Source(s): Reuters