But as we develop our capability further, we may be able to deploy larger amounts of capital, so that’s our strategic thinking. Please give us a bit more time, we will show that our strategy regarding paying or not paying a dividend is better. Regarding AI strategy, definitely we will communicate with the market more. At this time, basically we just gave our strategic thinking work in progress because it’s–so in my view, there are two types of AI work, one is the so-called plus AI, meaning existing business, like plus-AI, so this is great. This is something we must do, right, as a fintech leader, pioneer. We need to utilize the most cutting edge technology, which is AI right now, so AI has been going into our fintech businesses and our company management, big time.
But at the same time, we are thinking about really doing AI native kind of work, meaning developing this model training platform, starting to serve customers from other sectors like open sourcing much of the platform and so on, and also strategically building a vertical model for psychology, social companion and so on. This is more AI native, like AI-first opportunities, so as they come along, we will definitely communicate with the public more and more, and frankly it’s my vision that three, five years down the road, we are not just a fintech player, we are a fintech player and an AI leader. The fintech business, utilizing AI big time is like, that’s our showcase, right? We can utilize AI great, but our AI capability is also open to all, so not just our own fintech business.
That’s the strategic thinking, it’s very, in my view, a great, great moment for us to do that, and I hope to make that happen. That’s our thinking behind it.
Matthew Larson: Okay, great. Thanks for illuminating that, and I look forward to, again, hopefully seeing some more communication with the investment community here in the United States about your AI initiatives, your pioneering embrace of AI, and frankly you’ve been employing AI or algorithms to a certain degree for years to make your credit decisions, so this is nothing new for you, and if investors understood that, there’s no question in my mind that your company stock would be given a significantly higher valuation. Thanks again, and have a good evening.
Ning Tang: Well, thank you, but I’d like to add, Matt, that previous big data work was great, but current AI is a whole new ballgame. We are mastering that capability so we have this confidence. Thank you.
Matthew Larson: Okay, great. Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from Peter Ruh with BlueBird Advisory. Please go ahead.
Peter Ruh: Thank you, good morning. The elephant in the room is your capital structure. If you gave a $50 million dividend, that would be about 5%. You still have over US $700 million to buy an AI company. In America, we say show us the money and quit talking about AI every other sentence, because you’re a Cayman-based Chinese company. You don’t have a lot of credibility. Mr. Tang did not have enough respect for his shareholders to be on this call today. I have great respect for the big company he’s built, but he evidently doesn’t want–or maybe this is my question, do you need to ask the Chinese government to distribute a cash dividend or to buy back shares? Is there some legal Chinese reason where you cannot distribute the money, because an American shareholder who’s looking at your balance sheet, it makes no sense why you do not have a dividend.
Last quarter, Ms. Mei said you wanted to be considered a growth company, which is why you didn’t want to do a dividend, but you’re not even considered a value company right now, and paying a dividend would restore some credibility in the American economy amongst shareholders, because right now Chinese companies don’t have a lot of credibility among American investors. You did list on the American exchange, so you did access American capital and you need to respect that, and I’m wondering, is there a legal reason why you cannot distribute a dividend or do a bigger buyback than a few million dollars?
Ning Tang: Thank you for your question and for you joining the call. I respectfully disagree with some of your points. Let me say the following. First of all, there’s no such restriction whatsoever, and it’s our decision to put our funding, money into higher value generating activities. As a matter of fact, we did a dividend before, so as I mentioned, it’s not new to us. We’ve been doing cash, like a share buyback and we will do more, but we are also aware that our float is not that great, so if we buy more and more, there will be limited float for larger institutional investors. I’m not buying this kind of–yes, I respect American investors, global investors, and actually I felt no good when our share price declined due to many factors out of our control.
But we’ve been trying so hard in the past years to produce great results quarter over quarter, and I believe with our new strategy, with our ongoing dedication, the company will do great. As a matter of fact, last year the value of the company grew over 100%. Of course, it’s from a very humble base we were not happy about, but we’ve also been happy about its recent development. That’s my feedback to you, sir, so I think we will just have to work harder to build a solid company for our shareholders and partners. Thank you.
Peter Ruh: Well last quarter, Ms. Mei said that you would do a more proactive approach to speaking to retail investors since you really have very few institutional investors, and I don’t think in the past three months that you’ve had any event where you’ve reached out to the retail American investment community. Instituting a small percentage dividend, whether it’s $20 million, $30 million a year, would instill some confidence in the investing public, and even the institutions, that you respect your shareholders, that it’s not just a company for Mr. Tang, that you respect the shareholders and want to share some of the revenue as a display of strength. You’ve bounced from lending to insurance, now your insurance is down 50% from last quarter, so evidently you’re not really going to be a big insurance player.
