Matthew Larson: And if you could tell me how much have you bought back year-to-date of the $20 million that was announced before the year started.
Na Mei: Yes. As I mentioned, we announced that the new share purchase payback program last year and as mentioned in my script, by as of June 30 this year, the accumulated amount is USD [indiscernible] and the latest amount by today is about USD 5 million for your revenue.
Matthew Larson: Okay. So I mean you’ve been a pretty significant buyer. I mean, it’s going to be tough to get your $20 million in there unless you get the volume up. Here’s — I’ve been a long-term investor off and on with your company. I’ve been on the conference call before a few times. I frankly, participated in your IPO when I was at Morgan Stanley in December of 2015, when you were a peer-to-peer lender and your stock at ultimately going to $50 when that business was not as highly regulated by the governmental agencies in the PRC but you’ve reinvented yourselves. But I mean you’re still a lender, I guess, a capital-light lender but yes, your real growth seems to be from insurance and financial services and what have you.
You still have a loan book of about $1 billion. Do you keep any of those loans on your books since you’ve got $800 million in cash, the regulatory authorities prefer that because that’s what the banks have to do and the capital-light strategy is great as far as a risk point of view to you all. But the more loans you keep on the books, I think, would appease regulators. Could you answer that for me, please?
Na Mei: I would answer your question, you have to mention we have big cash balance in our finance payment so actually, we have also used our own funding to service our own client. We have competed with Entrust company in this year. And by now, they have $600 million, we have cooperated with the trust to both our quality and we also have our own financial license company and so, and we can also use this financial licenses to service [indiscernible]. As I mentioned in July — in June, we also acted as a financial guarantee company. And financial guarantee company can also service our quality business and also have to compete with other funding partners in the cooperation with [indiscernible], our company can give the direct guarantees to our customers, which will also a way to cost our cash balance. Yes, of course, we will still keep our company to keep cooperating with other financial companies to use our cash balance to [indiscernible] our business development.
Matthew Larson: Okay. A couple of more questions the previous caller commented on the stock price, which I always have. I mean you trade for less than 1x forward earnings. You trade at about 1/4 of your cash balance. I mean, these sorts of valuations would not exist anywhere on any exchange outside of the Chinese PRC stock. There are other companies that trade well below cash because there is a disillusion in investing in the PRC right now. That can change. I believe in mean reversion, but people are distrustful rightly so of these sorts of valuations, the previous call I was asking about your auditors but you’re not alone. There’s other companies that trade below it, but you are in particular, plus you’re growing your earnings dramatically and your user base and what have you.
In your news release, you mentioned AI 3x, 4x, 5x. In my judgment, you — your company and other fintech companies have used AI or some aspect of AI for years. That’s how you make your loan decisions from customers who use your service you do a quick algorithmic review of their creditworthiness and then you approve it or don’t approve it. And I think you need to highlight that. You put out very few news releases. The only ones that I’ve seen since the last Earnings Call was the announcement that you bought the Chongqing Jintong, Guaranty Finance, which you just talked about. But you didn’t mention whether it be accretive or really what it was going to do other than like draw on conclusions. But why don’t you put out more PR or more news releases highlighting AI, that you’re an AI company, you always have been and you should be valued like companies that are employing AI for their productivity growth.
That’s one of the problems nobody even knows about your company. When I’m on these conference calls, often I’m the only person or maybe one other person, you don’t have any research coverage even though you used to be followed by Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley and companies like that, but they dropped covering you when your stock price got too low. And also the previous caller mentioned another company XYF which is a higher-priced stock slightly. That was underwritten by Morgan Stanley as well. They don’t follow that anymore, but it does trade at a higher multiple and then the market leader in the consumer finance area, fintech, which is QFIN, is about 5x earnings, and it trades like 2x, 3x book. So I expect and really demand that if you’re interested in a higher stock price, which I assume you are, I mean, who wouldn’t be.
So particularly when your stock used to be 20x where it is, I mean, you must look back on those days, they just wish because the personal wealth for your employees and yourself would be dramatically improved. So please get a company to be in charge of our public relations and tell the story out there to investors. Many small price stocks, even many from the PRC double or triple a day on almost no news. Here, you report a blowout quarter and you’ve got growth across almost all your business lines and I don’t think you may even noticed it. But for shareholders have been patient, we would mind a little upward trajectory in the stock. So that would be a strong recommendation on my part. And let’s see what else I have. I think that’s it. So you got to get the word out there you have to keep using AI because what you’re doing now, talking about AI, talking about your valuation have you ever thought of doing a roadshow.
I mean if you had a $1 gain in your stock price, I mean, that would be a tremendous percentage gain. It would also make investors like myself, significantly add to our positions, all right? I’ve had large positions in it. I do relatively so. But I’m reluctant to put more money in the money — I’m a financial adviser because there’s only so many $2 stocks that you could have in a client account as a percentage. Otherwise, you bump up against compliance issues. So the best way to get your stock up there is to get the word out, all right? Talk about your AI initiatives. And as far as making share buybacks, if you’re restricted by the volume by your broker and by the SEC rules, what about some insiders. I mean all these employees who don’t want to sell you their stock because they like — they want to grow with it.
It’d be nice if you had some that could buy 10,000 shares or 50,000 or something. That makes news. So you need somebody new in the PR area. My 18-year-old son who’s on Instagram, and other social media, TikTok, he could take this story and triple your stock, I bet, just by getting it out or getting one or two influencers to pick up the story, whether it’s Reddit or wallstreetbets. I mean does that make sense to you? I mean, your company is worth at least 4 or 5x where it is now, and that would still be undervalued, okay? Because that would be 4x earnings. How about 10x earnings, all right, with all the cash you have 10x, would your employees and would you all like to see your stock up tenfold? So that would be my suggestion. I think it’s common sense, frankly.
So I hope you take some of my suggestions and that of some of the other callers and also just looking at your stock price, do you want to be — do you want to be a wolf or a mouse, I mean, to be honest with you. So I appreciate your tremendous performance. Thank you very much, and that’s all I have to say, but I hope to see some of these reforms.
Ning Tang: Got it. You’ll see more and more. Last time I heard you loud and clear. And now we have this AI yes, more and more. And yes, so I appreciate that we’ll double triple our marketing communications effort, probably consider hiring your son.
Matthew Larson: Well, I’m not suggesting he’s — I’ll make it clear. He’s not doing this. I’m saying that a young person’s skill set in going on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, you name it. Just think of 1,000 people knew about your stock and they all bought $8,000 worth of stock. That’s an $8 million concentrated interest in it. And that’s how you get stocks to lift is getting more than just one or two people knowing about it. So anyway, he’s not doing it, I want to make that clear. So thank you very much. Have a great quarter. I’ll continue to be an investor. But if the stock starts to lift, I buy on strength, okay, and in size, and I’m just one guy. So I would please consider some of my suggestions as I’ve been on the buy side for 40 years and what do you got to lose, all right?
Ning Tang: Yes, we will absolutely.
