Will Lufax’s stock sale in April help Hong Kong in its race for the IPO crown?
At US$60 billion, Lufax is set to become China’s second most valuable fintech company, only after Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial, which was previously estimated to be worth US$75 billion
Hong Kong is set for its second heavyweight fintech flotation in less than seven months, as China’s largest online wealth management platform lines up a listing in the city in April, which experts now hope will do wonders to act as a magnet for other blockbuster tech and internet firms to choose to list here in 2018.
Set up by Ping An Insurance Group in 2011, Shanghai-based Lufax – its full name is Shanghai Lujiazui International Financial Asset Exchange – plans to file an application with the Hong Kong exchange at the end of this month and is looking for a valuation of around US$60 billion, according to sources close to the company. That’s a threefold increase from US$18.5 billion after its last funding round in 2016.
At US$60 billion, Lufax is set to become China’s second-most valuable fintech company, only after Alibaba’s affiliate Ant Financial. Ant Financial was valued at US$75 billion by CLSA in 2016.
While Lufax’s bankers and advisers are still discussing how many shares to sell, initial expectations are for around 10 to 15 per cent of its valuation, one of the sources said.
That would make it Hong Kong’s first major fintech listing since ZhongAn Online Property & Casualty Insurance raised US$1.5 billion in its Hong Kong debut back in September, which valued the insurtech firm at US$13 billion – considered back then by many in the market as a huge fish to land.
ZhongAn’s co-founders include Alibaba’s Jack Ma Yun, Tencent’s Pony Ma Huateng, and Ping An’s Peter Ma Mingzhe.