China’s micro-lender assault threatens path to US listings

Bloomberg

A new assault by Chinese authorities on the country’s cash micro-lenders threatens to stymie any new listings in New York, as regulators in Beijing escalate their campaign to reduce risks in China’s $40 trillion financial-services sector.
According to the International Financial News, China plans to purge the country’s 157 online micro-lenders, leaving only large state-owned companies and the biggest internet firms intact with licenses. Few of the existing lenders will survive, said the newspaper, which is managed by the official People’s Daily.
A comprehensive cleansing of the industry, which offers almost immediate unsecured loans over the Internet, often at high interest rates, would escalate earlier moves to crack down on the sector and its estimated $152 billion of loans. News that China has halted further approvals for online micro-lenders has already pummeled the New York shares of firms like Qudian Inc. and PPDAI Group Inc.
If existing firms were to come under scrutiny, it would be especially bad timing for Yangqianguan, LexinFintech Holdings Ltd., Dianrong and other Chinese online lenders currently seeking or at least weighing initial public offerings in New York.
“It would seem to be an enormous, enormous risk to try an IPO with that hanging over your head,” said Christopher Balding, an associate professor at Peking University HSBC School of Business. “It would most likely put a halt to any IPO plans of these companies now.”