Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C., a nationally recognized shareholder law firm, announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York on behalf of investors that purchased X Financial (NYSE: XYF) securities pursuant and/or traceable to the company’s September 19, 2018 initial public stock offering (the “IPO” or the “Offering”). Investors have until February 7, 2020 to apply to the Court to be appointed as lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.
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On November 20, 2018, X Financial held its first earnings call after the IPO to discuss its financial results. As executives explained on the call, the negative operational and financial results reported in the day’s press release had been caused by market and other problems that had long preceded the IPO.
During the November 20, 2018 earnings call, analysts questioned X Financial’s executives about the rapidly contracting preferred loans and rising delinquency rates. In response, they conceded that low demand and “very high” delinquency rates for X Financial’s preferred loans had produced a cascading effect that decreased the Company’s overall financial results. As these executives explained, plummeting demand and high default rates had, in turn, forced the Company to make the “big [strategy change] to . . . scale down the preferred loan business.” Scaling down preferred loans, meanwhile, had prompted “a change in product mix resulting from a significant increase in the proportion of revenue generated by Xiaoying Card Loan.” The pivot to depending on card loans had, in turn, caused a reduction in X Financial’s “average loan ticket size by 20% to even 25%” and also caused further increases in the Company’s overall delinquency rate, as card loans by nature represented significantly higher risks.
In subsequent financial reports, X Financial has confirmed that the problems described above started before the IPO.
On April 25, 2019, X Financial filed its annual report for 2018 on Form 20-F. The report contained a chart entitled “Delinquency Rate by Vintage of Xiaoying Preferred Loan,” which illustrated the dramatic increase in delinquency rates leading up to and during the IPO—including in first, second, and third quarters of 2018—and that such negative trends were accelerating.
Then on May 21, 2019, during X Financial’s earnings call to discuss the Company’s first quarter 2019 results, defendant Tang admitted that X Financial was unlikely to achieve significant loan or revenue growth because its preferred loan business had failed “over the last year” and that the Company was shelving the entire business.
On November 22, 2019, X Financial’s ADSs closed at $1.74 per ADS. This price represented an 81.68% decline from the $9.50 per share price at which X Financial’s ADSs had been sold to the investing public in the IPO.
The Complaint, filed on December 9, 2019, alleges that the company’s Registration Statement was negligently prepared and, as a result, contained untrue statements of material fact or omitted to state other facts necessary to make the statements made not misleading and was not prepared in accordance with the rules and regulations governing its preparation. Specifically, the Registration Statement made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) the Company’s total loan facilitation amount was not growing, but rather was contracting; (ii) the number of investors actively using X Financial’s platform was shrinking; (iii) demand from SMEs for the Company’s preferred loans was plummeting; (iv) the Company’s preferred loans had performed so poorly that it had begun drastically scaling back its preferred loans in the first quarter of 2018, several months before the IPO, and was in the process of phasing out such loans completely; (v) demand for the Company’s card loans was also plummeting; (vi) the revenue and loan facilitation growth provided in the Registration Statement leading up to the IPO was achieved by relaxed credit and due diligence standards, under which the Company had underwritten tens of millions of dollars’ worth of poor quality loans that suffered from a disproportionately high risk of default as compared to the Company’s earlier loan vintages; (vii) the Company was suffering from accelerated delinquency rates from poor quality loans that it had underwritten in the first, second, and third quarters of 2018, which had caused the Company’s delinquency rate to sharply rise; (viii) the Company’s product mix had significantly deteriorated; (ix) the Company’s net revenue was on track to decline by 22% during the third quarter of 2018; and (x) as a result, the Registration Statement was materially false and/or misleading and failed to state information required to be stated therein.
If you purchased X Financial securities pursuant and/or traceable to the IPO, have information, would like to learn more about these claims, or have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact Brandon Walker or Melissa Fortunato by email at investigations@bespc.com, or telephone at (212) 355-4648, or by filling out this contact form. There is no cost or obligation to you.
About Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C.:
Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C. is a nationally recognized law firm with offices in New York and California. The firm represents individual and institutional investors in commercial, securities, derivative, and other complex litigation in state and federal courts across the country. For more information about the firm, please visit www.bespc.com. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
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