In an opinion article, one investor shares emails that have been leaked at Chinese marketplace lender Yirendai (NYSE: YRD); leaked emails show the company's chairman requiring parent company employees at CreditEase to invest in a fund to purchase undisclosed US equities; the author states the fund is likely purchasing shares of YRD and presents his case for shorting the stock; the stock recently saw volatility following China's new regulatory guidance for P2P lenders. Source
[Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Tharon Smith, Managing Director of LendIt China. Tharon is an expert in...
New York-based commercial real estate developer Tishman Speyer has partnered with CreditEase Wealth Management to invest $1.4 billion in China and other countries within the next three years; according to Tang Ning, CreditEase founder and CEO, the partnership will focus on long-term development, providing clients with globalized and diverse portfolios. Source
Chinese fintech company CreditEase has announced it will use Verint Systems, Inc. for customer service; Verint will provide speech analytics, call recording, quality management and customer reporting support services; according to CreditEase, the service provider will help the company reduce operating costs by approximately 45% annually. Source
CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund (CEFIF) announced three investments in new fintech companies at LendIt USA 2017; the investments were a series C round in Trumid, an electronic trading platform for the bond market, series B round in WeConvene, an online corporate access management ERP provider for capital markets, and a seed round in WorldCover, an innovative peer-to-peer insurance network; Anju Patwardhan, senior partner of CEFIF, said: "We believe the Chinese fintech market will continue to grow in 2017 and beyond, as many three to five year-old companies have grown into large-scale operations. We expect many of these to mature into high-quality, mid-to-late stage companies." Source
Chinese lenders are moving into Southeast Asian countries to explore new opportunities in lightly regulated countries; according to Global Times, over 50 Chinese lenders have already launched overseas operations in countries like Indonesia and Cambodia; current entrants include well known names like CreditEase, Lufax and jimu.com; some lenders are opening up subsidiaries while others are focusing on partnerships with local companies. Source
CreditEase CEO Ning Tang is looking to offer an investment alternative to real estate investors by launching a fund of funds focused on real estate projects; currently investors in China need to directly buy property and hope the assets appreciate in value; the fund of funds strategy that CreditEase is looking to employ will allow investors to have access to leading real estate funds managed by Blackstone and KKR. Source.
CreditEase Wealth Management announced the first close of their second fund dedicated to investing in Israeli tech startups; the amount raised was $32.2 million; final target for the fund is $50 million; the focus of investments will include virtual and augmented reality, artificial intelligence and machine learning, digital healthcare, internet of things technology, cloud and data storage, and advanced manufacturing. Source
Ning Tang, founder of CreditEase speaks about 2016 headwinds faced by Yirendai, the company's P2P lending arm; in August, 2016 the stock declined after new rules were put in place by Chinese authorities on P2P lenders; according to Ning Tang, "We need to do more in terms of investor education and communication as most of the international investors do not have a clear understanding of China's credit market and financial innovation."; 2016 transaction volume was 20 billion yuan ($2.92 billion) in 2016; Tang eyes 100 billion yuan ($14.59 billion) by 2020; looking forward, the company plans to form closer relationships with traditional banks to reach offline customers. Source
The CreditEase Wealth Management Offshore Private Credit Fund (OPCF) has announced new investments in OnDeck and LendingHome; in 2015 the fund raised $80 million from Chinese clients, including high net worth and mass affluent investors, which it expects to be fully invested by March 2017; a $30 million investment in OnDeck and LendingHome adds to previous investments in Avant and Prosper in 2016; the firm also says it is planning to fundraise for another offshore private credit fund, OPCF II; CreditEase is targeting $200 million for this fund and its investments will likely be similar with a different fund structure, varying durations, new geographies and new types of credit products. Source