Unidentified Analyst: All right, but it wouldn’t make sense to pay people in stock when your stock is still undervalued. You might as well pay cash because you have plenty of cash. So if you’re going to reward people with cash…
Ning Tang: I’m talking about the future.
Unidentified Analyst: Okay, very well. All right, listen, you’re not the only firm that’s — the only company that’s in your space. I like your company because you’ve broadened out your business model to include insurance and things like that. But other companies that are strictly lending platforms like QFIN or FINB, FinVolution, which we reported last night. Another company reports tomorrow, which is X Financial. I’m familiar with all these companies, because I worked at Morgan Stanley and we underwrote you guys. We were part of the initial public offering back in 2016 and 2015. So I’m very familiar with your companies. And I’ve just been frustrated that I haven’t gotten — I haven’t made as much money as I’d like to, because I’ve had to be patient.
But I’ll just leave it there. I mean, there’s nothing else to say. Your stock should be worth a lot more. As you’re buying as many shares as the volume will allow, that’s all I can ask. When is the window open for you to buy more shares? I mean, the volume spiked the last couple days. When can you buy more shares after this earnings call?
Ning Tang: Yeah, once the window opens up. We will [Technical Difficulty]
Unidentified Analyst: You’ll go all in. When does that window open up, sir?
Na Mei: Okay, I’ll answer your question. After the…
Ning Tang: [Multiple Speakers] exact date?
Na Mei: Yes, by today. After our complete conference call and the release of earning the third quarter of the finance statement, the window is open.
Unidentified Analyst: Okay, last question. Some of your competitors do pay a dividend. [QEHO] (ph), which is QFIN is the symbol, XYF, and FINV pay dividends, which not only returns some of your huge cash position to shareholders, but it makes shareholders more comfortable dealing with a company from a CRC that pays dividends, because if you pay dividends then the money you have is actually there, so have you considered that?
Ning Tang: We have thought about that, as a matter of fact we did it like a while ago for a while. And so there are different schools of thought. And so people say that, what you just said is one school and some people say that, which I tend to agree more is that, once you pay dividends, you become a category of dividend paying companies as opposed to high growth companies. And if you are a high growth company, which we are, so we have like high growth, high quality growth opportunities for our cash. And so, we should belong to that category. And so, I firmly believe we are, as we showed the high growth rate, high-quality growth, AI driven growth. So yes, I understand dividend helps in terms of returning money to investors. So we do buyback aggressively, and that’s another way of returning, alternative way of returning — generating value for investors. While speaking to being a high growth company, putting cash in better use. That’s our current thinking.
Unidentified Analyst: I mean, the buybacks are good except for the stock price really hasn’t moved. Let me just give you some advice. The four or five companies that came public five or six years ago that were peer-to-peer lenders like you used to be, but are in the same business space really that you all are that pay dividends. One is FinVolution. I’m sure you’re familiar with them. They traded 4.5 times earnings and they pay a dividend of 4%. And then if you look at QFIN, which is QIHU, all right — Qifu, I’m sorry. Morgan Stanley follows them from a research point of view and it’s got a $3 billion market cap, but they pay a dividend also and that trades at 5 times earnings. So, just paying a dividend could increase your stock market price to earnings multiple 3 or 4 or 5 times.
So your stock could go up literally 4 or 5 times if you just pay a small dividend. So you might want to think about that, because if you pay a dividend, certain investors will invest because they like the dividend, but it also gives them comfort that all this cash that you have on your balance sheet is actually there because you can’t pay dividends unless you have money. So if you pay it, it kind of proves to them that you’re very, very, very good financial position from a balance sheet point of view is valid. So, your stock could go up 2 times or 3 times just by paying a dividend. So that’s my advice.
Ning Tang: Thank you. Noted. We’ll study further.
Unidentified Analyst: Very well. Thank you for your time.
Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] This concludes our conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
Ning Tang: Thank you all.
