By Emily Dattilo
Shares of LendingClub were tumbling Wednesday after the web-based lending company reported solid quarterly results but issued light guidance.
LendingClub stock fell 21% to $13.27 in premarket trading Wednesday. Fintech peers were little changed. SoFi Technologies slid 0.7%, Upstart Holdings gained 0.1%, and Affirm rose 0.7%.
For its fourth quarter, the company reported earnings of 8 cents per share, missing Wall Street's call for 9 cents, according to FactSet.
Total net revenue of $217.2 million topped consensus of $206.5 million. The revenue upside was offset by a higher provision for credit losses, "which led to the in-line quarter," wrote Seaport Research Partners analyst Bill Ryan. He rates shares at Buy with a price target of $19.
Total loan originations increased 13% to $1.85 billion. For the first quarter, LendingClub anticipates loan originations of $1.8 billion to $1.9 billon and pre-provision net revenue, or PPNR, between $60 million and $70 million. Analysts had penciled in originations of $1.876 billon and PPNR of $67.5 million.
Keefe Bruyette & Woods analysts Timothy Switzer and Emily Lee cut their price target to $16 from $17 and reiterated an Outperform rating on the stock. They believe the selloff is overdone because LendingClub has been very conservative with guidance in the past and then proceeds to beat estimates.
"Although 2025 guidance was below the market's elevated expectations, LC is still facing an objectively improving environment with many positive catalysts ahead of it," the analysts wrote, citing strong demand from asset manager purchasers and the return of bank buyers to the loan marketplace.
Write to Emily Dattilo at emily.dattilo@dowjones.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 29, 2025 07:46 ET (12:46 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Comments