Pintec raises $44 million in Nasdaq IPO

Pintec Technology Holdings Ltd, which operates an online platform that facilitates merchant financing in China, raised $44 million in an initial public offering on the Nasdaq Stock Market in New York Thursday.

Pintec, which trades under the symbol ``PT", sold 3.7 million American depositary shares or ADS at $11.88 each.

According to the company's prospectus filed earlier this year, its top five shareholders are Genius Hub, Mandra iBase, New Fortune Fund, Ventech China and Xiaomi Ventures.

By providing solutions on point-of-sale lending, personal installment lending, small and medium enterprise lending, wealth management and insurance products, Pintec has 179 business partners and 81 financial partners as of March 31, including Qunar, Ctrip, BestPay, Vip.com, Xiaomi, 360 Finance, Anbang Finance and Minsheng Securities, the prospectus said.

The company has grown rapidly, with revenue increasing from 54.9 million yuan ($8.02 million) in 2016 to 568.7 million yuan last year. Revenue jumped to 279.4 million yuan in the first quarter of this year from 63.6 million yuan in the same period last year.

Pintec turned a profit in the first quarter of this year with a net income of 14.6 million yuan, after suffering net losses of 200.5 million yuan in 2016 and 84.9 million yuan in 2017. The company is incorporated in the Cayman Islands and its directors control nearly 79 percent of the voting power.

Despite trade tensions between China and the US, Chinese companies have been eager to list on American markets. Chinese IPOs in the US accounted for about a fifth of US IPO proceeds in the first quarter this year, according to Renaissance Capital, a research firm based in Connecticut.

Contact the writer at paulwelitzkin@chinadailyusa.com