Deals
Goldman, Citi Drop Chinese Peer-to-Peer Lenders After Crackdown
- Firms stop work on U.S. IPOs of 360 Finance, Jiayin Group
- Timing of the deals was a concern for Wall Street firms
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First came a sweeping government crackdown and a surge in defaults and failures at thousands of China’s peer-to-peer lenders. Now, in another troubling sign for the industry, some of the biggest investment banks have stopped taking them public.
Wall Street firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. walked away from U.S. initial public offerings of Chinese P2P lenders in recent months, people with knowledge of the matter said. Their concerns mainly stemmed from the timing of the deals, with an uncertain outlook for P2P companies and a slumping market knocking down valuations. In each case, the businesses went ahead with their offerings after finding new underwriters.