Ant Financial Wants to Sell $1.2 Billion Consumer-Backed Securities

Ant Financial Services Group, China’s biggest online financial services provider, is seeking to raise another 8 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) through the sale of securities backed by consumer loans, adding to the 136 billion yuan it has issued so far this year.
The company, an affiliate of e-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., filed the application (link in Chinese) to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Wednesday, adding to the three asset-backed securities (ABS) sales it applied for last week totaling 23 billion yuan. The securities are issued by Ant Financial’s consumer lending units, Huabei and Jiebei.
Alibaba has scaled back its ABS sales this year after a crackdown by regulators forced companies to adjust their online lending businesses amid mounting concerns over risks stemming from high interest rates, and improper market and loan-collection practices.
The average value of each of Ant Financial’s ABS applications this year has been 8 billion yuan compared with 29.3 billion yuan in 2017. The total amount raised so far this year, including the securities now being reviewed by the regulator, has fallen to 144 billion yuan, less than half of the 293 billion yuan raised for the whole of 2017.
New rules issued at the end of last year aimed to cap the rapid growth of China’s consumer loans and set limits on lenders’ leverage ratios. Ant Financial’s leverage ratio was much higher than the limit set by regulators, which meant it had to slow its expansion in the short term, according to a report by SWS Research in January.
Contact reporter Liu Jiefei (jiefeiliu@caixin.com)
-
Apr 09 05:51 PM
-
Apr 09 04:54 PM
-
Apr 09 02:08 PM
-
Apr 08 07:01 PM
-
Apr 08 07:00 PM
-
Apr 08 05:11 PM
-
Apr 08 01:30 PM
-
Apr 07 06:52 PM
-
Apr 07 02:03 PM
-
Apr 06 06:55 PM
-
Apr 06 05:03 PM
-
Apr 06 01:50 PM
-
Apr 02 06:28 PM
-
Apr 02 05:42 PM
-
Apr 02 03:55 PM
- 1Call of Duty Mobile Developer Outplays Games Publisher as Timi Studio Earns More Than Activision Blizzard
- 2Huawei Deactivates AI and Cloud Business Group in Restructuring
- 3China Services Expansion Hits Three-Month High, Caixin PMI Shows
- 4Cover Story: How a Gigantic Ship Shows the Fragility of Global Trade
- 5Beijing Exhibitions: Everything You Need to See in April
- 1Power To The People: Pintec Serves A Booming Consumer Class
- 2Largest hotel group in Europe accepts UnionPay
- 3UnionPay mobile QuickPass debuts in Hong Kong
- 4UnionPay International launches premium catering privilege U Dining Collection
- 5UnionPay International’s U Plan has covered over 1600 stores overseas