Chinese wealth manager CreditEase is believed to be seeking fresh funds to finance domestic expansion in its wealth management business.
The Beijing-based wealth manager is actively boosting its data and cloud computing capabilities as startups and foreign players enter the increasingly competitive wealth management sector. It is now seeking new funding in order to finance its expansion domestically, according to a «Bloomberg» report citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
CreditEase has yet to determine a target but it is seeking «several billion yuan» in equity financing, the sources said, though planning is still at a preliminary stage. The firm's chief executive Tang Ning has also said that CreditEase was targeting an initial public offering in 2020.
The fintech giant currently has assets under management that total 150 billion yuan ($21.4 billion), as of September 2018, from more than 50,000 high net worth clients alongside several hundred thousands of mass fluent clients.
