Key Takeaways:
Quantgroup has filed to list in Hong Kong, reporting a profit of 126 million yuan for the first five months of this year
The operator of two consumer-facing online platforms has net current liabilities of more than 770 million yuan
By Lau Chi Hang
Hong Kong's red-hot IPO market shows few signs of cooling, with even the more mundane among of a flood of new listings often attracting frenzied demand. As for investment value, the prevailing attitude seems to be: Who cares? Speculate first!
Quantgroup Holding Ltd., an online consumer website operator, is hoping to capitalize on that market momentum by dusting off and refiling its Hong Kong listing application, aiming to overcome earlier setbacks. Its goal: Raising funds to stabilize its sizable debt.
Quantgroup operates two core businesses: its Yangxiaomie lifestyle platform, and its online-to-offline (O2O) auto retail Consumption Guide. It generates money by matching merchants with consumers through product displays, online payments, order processing and logistics.
Quantgroup is hoping the seventh time will be the charm for its latest listing application, having filed and failed in its previous six attempts. The company was founded in 2014 by Zhou Hao, who was on this year's Forbes list of "China Pioneer Innovators in Industry Development." Its original platform, Credit Wallet, was a peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform that linked financial institutions with borrowers, both businesses and individuals, with Quantgroup collecting handling and service fees.
That business was part of an early group of P2P lenders that thrived as China opened its financial services market to private companies. But the government cracked down on such lending starting in 2017, worried about fraud and also companies' inability to manage risk. That forced Quantgroup to transform from a lending platform into a digital solutions provider, which it did by setting up Yangxiaomie in 2020. ...
