Lufax, the China-headquartered digital financial services platform operator spun off by insurance group Ping An, raised more than $2.36bn in an initial public offering in the United States on Friday.
The offering consisted of 175 million American Depositary Shares (ADSs), each representing half an ordinary share, issued on the New York Stock Exchange and priced at the top of its $11.50 to $13.50 range. The share price valued the company at almost $32.9bn.
Lufax operates an online peer-to-peer lending and wealth management platform that manages some $53bn of assets for its users. Its income grew slightly to more than $3.63bn in the first half of this year and it generated more than $1bn in net profit over the same period.
BlackPine Private Equity Partners, CDH Investments and China International Capital provided $500m in series A funding for the company in 2015 at a $10bn valuation.
Financial services group Bank of China, food producer Cofco, Guotai Junan and Minsheng Shangyin International supplied $924m in series B funding the following year alongside $292m from the series A investors, valuing Lufax at $18.5bn.
The series B round also included Ping An and preceded a $1.33bn round in late 2018 co-led by financial services provider SBI, Primavera Capital, All-Stars Investment and Qatar Investment Authority.
Investment banks UBS, JP Morgan, Macquarie Group, UOB and Goldman Sachs also participated in the 2018 round, as did Hedosophia, Hermitage Capital and LionRock Capital.
Ping An’s 42.3% stake in the company was diluted to 39% in the offering while its largest shareholder remains Tun Kung Company, a vehicle with several Lufax employees among its backers, that retains a 39.4% share.
Goldman Sachs (Asia), BofA Securities, UBS Securities, HSBC Securities (USA) and China PA Securities (Hong Kong) are active joint bookrunners for the offering.
Morgan Stanley, CLSA and Jefferies are joint bookrunners for the IPO while JP Morgan Securities, BOCI Asia, Haitong International Securities, Stifel Nicolaus, China Renaissance Securities (Hong Kong) and KeyBanc Capital Markets are co-managers.
The underwriters have 30 days to buy up to 26.25 million more ADSs which would theoretically boost the size of the offering to more than $2.7bn. Lufax’s shares closed at $12.85 on Friday and are currently trading at $13.52.
