What happened
Lufax Holding (LU -3.21%) saw its stock price jump on Tuesday, up as much as 15.7% on the day. At 2:45 p.m. ET, it was still up about 13.5% for the day. The stock price is up about 8% year to date, trading at about $2.10 per share as of April 11.
The market was mixed on Tuesday as the S&P 500 had gained 14 points (0.4%), and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 173 points (0.5%). The Nasdaq Composite, however, was down about 6 points at 2:45 p.m. ET.
So what
Lufax, a Chinese fintech that offers loans to small businesses as well as wealth-management services, jumped today on news that it proposed a dual primary listing by way of introduction on the main board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (HKEX). Listing by way of introduction means the shares are already widely held, so the company doesn't have to go through the initial public offering (IPO) process, raise additional funds, or issue new shares. It can simply start trading.
Shares of Lufax are expected to begin trading on the main board of the HKEX on April 14, pending the final listing approval from the HKEX.
In addition, the company's American depositary shares (ADS) will continue to be primarily listed and traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Shares listed on the HKEX will be fully fungible with the ADS listed on the NYSE.
The stock price jumped on Tuesday; this is seen as a positive for the company as it should broaden its base of investors and enhance the firm's liquidity.
Now what
While the primary dual listing may help, this remains a challenging economic environment for the fintech. It is coming off a fourth quarter where it had a $117 million (USD) net loss, was hurt by a significant drop in lending due to an economic slowdown in China, and had higher credit-impairment losses.
It has done a good job of streamlining its operations to run more efficiently, which may serve it well when the economy improves. But until then, there is a lot of near-term economic uncertainty for this penny stock right now.
