Internet Finance Provider VCredit Gets One Step Closer to Hong Kong IPO(Yicai Global) March 9 -- Internet finance firm VCredit Holdings is gearing up for its reported initial public offering in Hong Kong as the frontline regulator of companies listed in China's special administrative region released its IPO prospectus.
The prospectus published by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd., HKEx, sheds light on the financial data, corporate business, shareholders, and executives of VCredit, which mainly provides credit card balance transfer products, consumer credit products, and online-to-offline credit products, but gave no further details about any listing date and fundraising plan.
As a consumer finance company, VCredit posted total loan volume of CNY3.53 billion (USD557 million) in 2015, CNY7.87 billion in 2016, and CNY24.54 billion last year, with the compound annual growth rate of 163.7 percent, the prospectus showed.
Its revenues reached CNY1.06 billion in 2015, CNY1.43 billion in 2016, and CNY2.71 billion last year, with the compound annual growth rate of 59.6 percent. Its net losses were CNY300 million, CNY570 million, and CNY1 billion, respectively.
| VCredit | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
| Total loan volume provided | CNY3.53 billion (USD557 million) | CNY7.87 billion | CNY24.54 billion |
| Revenues | CNY1.06 billion | CNY1.43 billion | CNY2.71 billion |
| Net losses | CNY300 million | CNY570 million | CNY1 billion |
A summary of VCredit's three year financial performance
From 2015 to 2017, the loan scale of VCredit's credit card balance transfer products and consumer credit products kept growing, while the loan scale of its online-to-offline credit products kept diminishing.
The loans issued by VCredit mainly come from trust companies. They provide VCredit with funds according to a trust plan, and VCredit selects borrowers, provides loan guarantee, and subscribes for the subordinated tranche in the trust plan. As of the end of last year, trust loans had accounted for 79.4 percent of VCredit loans.
It has appointed Credit Suisse group, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. as sponsors for the listing. Increasing number of China's new economy companies have been lining up for Hong Kong IPO since HKEx unveiled a number of reforms on listing rules in the city, the most important of which is weighted voting rights (WVR).
Last year, Hong Kong announced plans to lift restrictions on share offers with differential voting rights, a sticking point for many tech companies which often give such rights to founders, in the most significant reform of listing rules in the city in 30 years.
