Last year, Chinese gaming billionaire Zhou Yahui invested £22m in LendInvest, a UK online lender specialising in the property market. The Series A investment from his firm Beijing Kunlun Technology was intended to help the lender grow faster ahead of a planned stock market float in 2016.
But now, little over a year later, LendInvest is buying back the stake, bringing an end to a relationship with a company whose investments include a controlling stake in gay dating app Grindr. The transaction is disclosed in the lender’s recently filed yearly accounts, which showed operating profits slightly up to £3.4m, before preferential dividends, and revenues up 133 per cent to £32m when off balance sheet assets are included.
Christian Faes, chief executive of LendInvest, confirmed the transaction. “We bought our Chinese investors out of the business,” he said, but declined to go into more detail. “It was an amicable arrangement,” he added.