Online metals brokerage raises $101 million in US IPO

Yintech Investment Holdings Ltd believes that Chinese investors are ready to diversify and invest in gold, silver and other metal commodities. The Shanghai-based online brokerage is now an American-listed company after its initial public offering on the Nasdaq Stock Market on Wednesday.

Shares of Yintech (YIN) closed at $13.50, unchanged from their IPO price. The company earlier sold 7.5 million American depositary shares (ADS), raising about $101.3 million, with Jefferies LLC as the lead underwriter.

Jingbo Wang, Yintech's CFO, said the company currently has about 55,000 account holders in China. "We are focused on the individual investor in China and not institutional investors," he said in an interview. "Our typical customer also has stock investments."

Yintech describes itself as the "largest online provider of spot commodity trading services in China by customer trading volume in 2014 and 2015".

Yintech doesn't have branch offices. Instead, customers use the company's online platform and call center to buy and sell gold and silver.

"We also offer trading in other metals like copper, aluminum, nickel, platinum and palladium. But 80 percent of our trading is in gold and silver," Wang said.

Yintech's online platform also provides data, research, market commentary, and online discussions and lectures.

Wang said investors must have at least 100,000 yuan ($15,392) to invest to open an account.

"Most of our customers have about five times that amount in stocks," he said. "This is not for everyone. Metal trading is risky and volatile - much more so than stocks."

Wang said Yintech is not interested in expanding its services to include stock trading. "That part of the market is very competitive," he said.

About 70 percent of Yintech account holders are men, Wang said. "The penetration for metal trading is very low in China, so we see ample opportunity to grow," he said.

Yintech had revenue of 1.2 billion yuan in 2015.

Yintech is only the third Chinese company to list in the United States in 2016. Oncology drug company BeiGene Ltd raised $182 million on the Nasdaq in February.

A month later, Hutchison China MediTech Ltd, a pharmaceutical company owned by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing's conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd, raised $110 million in an IPO.

Many Chinese companies have been delisting in the US to return to the mainland in search of a higher valuation.

In 2015, a string of US-listed Chinese companies unveiled privatization offers worth $37 billion to shift listings to China, Bloomberg reported.

paulwelitzkin@chinadailyusa.com