Lufax Holding, one of the biggest financial technology companies in China, is considering an initial public offering in the U.S. even as some other Chinese firms are choosing to dispose of their stocks in the mainland.
Lufax, an online investment and lending services entity, filed to list American depositary shares Wednesday on New York Stock Exchange. The company did not make public any fundraising information and employed a $100 million placeholder to compute its registration fee, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Lufax, backed by financial titan Ping An Insurance Group, is looking at securing around $3 billion in its initial public offering, which could be made "as soon as the end of October," sources with direct information of the initial public offering disclosed.
The Chinese holding's initial public offering could take place "as soon as the end of October," according to people with direct knowledge of the matter cited by Reuters.
Lufax is a major tech-empowered financial services firm in China whose objective is to cater to the unmet needs for personal loans among small businesses and employees. As of June 30 this year, its total balance of retail credit facilitated hit $74 billion, with $53 billion worth of total client assets generated through its online wealth platform.
Lufax was worth roughly $38 billion before its latest fundraising in 2018. Its filing follows the listing of OneConnect Financial Technology, another financial technology company supported by Ping An, which secured around $312 million in December last year.
Chinese tech firms have been looking to join the bandwagon and benefit in the rebound in stock markets, including on Wall Street, despite the deepening of trade and political frictions between Beijing and Washington.
U.S. regulators are calling for a heightened examination of Chinese business groups through a planned measure that threatens to delist some companies in the U.S., CNBC reported.
With a listing in the U.S., Lufax is gunning for what it views as a more innovative and comprehensive investor hub for fintech, the sources said.
