Lufax Holding Ltd (NYSE:LU) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 2 of 2

Operator: Your next question comes from Yada Li with CICC. Please go ahead.

Yada Li: Hello management, thanks for taking my questions. This is Yada with CICC, and my first question is regarding the risk of bearing percentage. Since last quarter, the company has completed the transition towards a 100% guarantee model. Looking forward, could you please give us more color on how to view the risk-bearing percentage at the end of this year and the future? Secondly, I was wondering if you could share more about the outlook for the bottom line. In addition, if possible, can you elaborate more about once we have gone through the transition period, what is the expected margin or the profit take rate for the SME loans? That’s all.

Yong Cho: Thanks, Yada, for your question. Let me pick up your first question, and then I will pass the second to David. The — about 100% guarantee model transition, you know that started from fourth quarter, the fourth quarter last year, that all new loans that we booked were granted by — either by customer finance company as on-balance sheet loans or was granted by our guarantee company on the 100% risk-bearing base model, right? And then knowing that, as of the end of fourth quarter this year, including safe business loans, the total loan balance, for which we are bearing risk responsibility is 48.3% out of total loan balance and then — which is up from 39.8% from the previous quarter. And it is 26% of total Puhui loan balance, that was enabled on our new 100% guarantee model. And then going forward, surely, because this is our new model in place, so it gradually — I mean, the portion of our risk-bearing balance will gradually and continues to grow.

David Choy: All right. So Yada, thanks for the question on this quarter net loss. I think as we mentioned before, we did achieve a pre-tax for this quarter. The key item actually affecting this quarter is really on the income tax. Income tax expenses increased to RMB1.3 billion, as you know, in this quarter, from RMB7.4 billion in the same period of 2023. This is really mainly due to the RMB1.05 billion withholding tax, which associated with our cross-border dividend upstream from PRC operating entities to the immediate holding company offshore. So as I mentioned, this cross-border dividend upstream arrangement is primarily to support the distribution of a special dividend plan as we all called out, that we announced on March 21 and of course, for other general liquidity arrangement progress at offshore. That’s my comment I want to make.

Operator: Thank you. That concludes our question-and-answer session for today. I will now turn the call back over to our management for closing remarks.

Xinyan Liu: Thank you. This concludes today’s call. Thank you for joining the conference call. If you have more questions, please do not hesitate to contact the company’s IR team. Thanks again.

Operator: Thank you. This conference is now concluded. You may now disconnect.

Follow Lubys Inc (NYSE:LUB)

Page 2 of 2