Lufax Holding (LU) Up on 4th Day After NPL Sale Strategy
Lufax Holdings extended its winning streak to a fourth straight day on Thursday, jumping 5.68 percent to close at $3.35 apiece as investor sentiment was bolstered by the company's asset sale strategy to rid itself of non-performing loans.
Earlier this week, Lufax Holding Ltd. (NYSE:LU), through its subsidiary Ping An Consumer Finance, entered into an asset transfer agreement with Shenzhen China Merchants Ping An Asset Management for the sale of 469 million yuan worth of non-performing debts for a consideration of 36.44 million yuan.
The transfer of claims will effectively reduce the credit risk for Lufax Holding Ltd. (NYSE:LU), which announced earlier this year that it was able to narrow its total outstanding loans by 18 percent to 193.4 billion yuan from 235.2 billion yuan previously.
Lufax Holding Ltd. (NYSE:LU) is a dual-listed financial services company based in China, whose trading remains suspended on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange pending regulatory issues.
While we acknowledge the potential of LU as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an extremely cheap AI stock that is also a major beneficiary of Trump tariffs and onshoring, see our free report on the .
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The Eighth-Generation Heir Driving Big Changes At Philippines' Oldest Conglomerate Ayala
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Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, chairman of Ayala Corp. Courtesy of Ayala Corp. Jaime Alfonso Zobel de Ayala, CEO of AC Mobility. Courtesy of Ayala Corp. At the same time as her elevation, her brother Jaime Alfonso, 34, and cousin Jaime Urquijo, 37, were named executive directors at the group. With these promotions, Ayala Corp. said, the next-generation of leaders was in place to drive its future growth. 'We're firing on all cylinders in the next few years,' Mariana tells Forbes Asia from her top-floor office at the 39-story Ayala Triangle Gardens Tower 2, in Makati City, home to Ayala Corp. and other Philippine corporate giants, such as noodle maker Monde Nissin and telecoms firm PLDT. The booming financial hub was the family's first real estate development, carved out from vast tracts of agricultural land acquired when the Philippines was still a colony of Spain. As one of the stewards of a storied legacy and with her dad's office just a few doors away from hers, the Harvard-and-Insead grad isn't taking things lightly. 'We've seen how the prior generations charted new paths,' she says. 'That's something we hope we can continue to do.' Jaime Urquijo, chief sustainability and risk officer of Ayala Corp. Courtesy of Ayala Corp. While her brother is charged with the group's EV infrastructure and car distribution businesses as CEO of AC Mobility, and cousin Jaime Urquijo targets ESG deliverables as Ayala Corp.'s chief sustainability and risk officer, Mariana has her work cut out for her at Ayala Land, the nation's second-largest property developer by market cap ($6.5 billion). Mariana is working with its president and CEO Anna Ma. Margarita B. Dy as the group undertakes one of its biggest capital investments to date: $2.5 billion to be spent on expanding Ayala Land's footprint across the country over the next five years. 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'Our malls, offices and hotels provide a steady stream of recurring income that complements the dynamic nature of our property development business,' Dy says by email. 'Under [Mariana's] leadership, we're not just renovating spaces, we're reimagining environments that reflect the evolving needs of a new generation of users.' Ayala Land isn't a laggard by any stretch. It posted record revenue in 2024 of 181 billion pesos, up by a fifth from a year earlier. But future-proofing is a key priority, says Benjamin Garcia, head of research at AP Securities in Manila—in particular, reducing its reliance on cyclical residential sales, currently the biggest contributor to the company's top line. Then there are its deep-pocketed rivals to contend with. SM Prime, the country's biggest mall developer with 88 malls and 10 million square meters of GLA, owned by the Sy siblings (No. 1 on the list of Philippines' 50 Richest), is spending 10 billion pesos to add seven new hotels to its hospitality portfolio. Robinson Land, controlled by Lance Gokongwei and his family (No. 14), in June hived off nine of its 56 shopping malls into a commercial REIT to bankroll expansion plans. Meanwhile property-to-spirits billionaire Andrew Tan's (No. 15) real estate arm Megaworld is building new resorts outside of Metro Manila and recently partnered with French hotel chain Accor. An artist impression of the Greenbelt 1 shopping center, expected to be completed by 2028. courtesy of Ayala Land S ince joining Ayala Land in 2015, after two years with the parent company's strategy and business development team, Mariana has learned first-hand the perils of underestimating competitors. 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'Property developers really have to diversify their revenue streams away from residential, and hotels seem like the best choice,' AP Securities' Garcia says. Geric Cruz for Forbes Asia O ver the past three decades, Mariana's father Jaime Augusto and uncle Fernando Zobel de Ayala have steered Ayala Corp., branching from its mainstay businesses of banking and property into telecoms and utilities and lately into education and healthcare. But BPI and Ayala Land remain the group's biggest cash generators, accounting for about 95% of 2024 core net profit of 45 billion pesos. Last year, Ayala Corp. rebranded its automotive subsidiary AC Motors as AC Mobility, the largest distributor (by dealership) for Japanese automakers Honda and Isuzu Motors in the Philippines, which under Jaime Alfonso, is stepping up the distribution of China's BYD electric vehicles in the country. It's also installed 226 EV charging stations nationwide and plans to expand the network to over 700 by year end. Meantime, under Jaime Urquijo's watch, Ayala Corp. cut its greenhouse gas emissions by a quarter in 2023 compared with 2021 levels, and is on track to realize the group's net zero target by 2050. Mariana says her father's big theme for the group is to build more consumer-focused businesses and that resonates with her. 'I love thinking about what's going to excite Filipino consumers,' she says. While she appreciates her father's counsel, she says she's learnt the most by observing how he makes decisions: 'He stays true to his values even when he encounters rough winds.' Jaime Zobel de Ayala (in 2014, the group's 180th anniversary.) Edwin Tuyay/Bloomberg Frontier Family A yala Corp. traces its roots to 1834 when Antonio de Ayala and Domingo Roxas built a distillery to make a juniper-flavored liquor called Ginebra San Miguel. (That eventually morphed into a gin-production company, today's largest by volume, owned by billionaire Ramon Ang.) Antonio, whose daughter married a Zobel, was later named a director of the Philippines' first bank, the predecessor to Bank of the Philippine Islands. The family began developing Hacienda Makati in the late 1940s, which had been the site of the country's first commercial airport, later turned by the Americans into an airbase during World War II. Joseph McMicking, a colonel who married Mercedes Zobel de Ayala from the fifth generation, created the blueprint that would transform the virtual grassland into the country's financial capital. Jaime Zobel de Ayala, 91, Mariana's grandfather, under whom the family's $3.4 billion fortune is listed at No. 7, took the helm in 1983 when his cousin, Enrique Zobel (d. 2004) retired. Amid political and economic turmoil, which led to the ouster of late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., Jaime steadied the ship, listing the property division as Ayala Land. When his sons—Jaime Augusto and Fernando—became co-vice chairmen in the mid-1990s, the conglomerate was ready to embark on expansion. The brothers pushed into new businesses with Jaime Augusto taking over as group chairman after the patriarch retired in 2006. More From Forbes Asia Forbes Forbes Philippines' 50 Richest 2024 List - Philippines' Billionaires Ranked Forbes Ayala Land Buys Philippine Hotel From Cash-Strapped New World By Ian Sayson Forbes Philippines' Ayala Land To Spend $500 Million To Expand Hotel Footprint Amid Tourism Boom By Ian Sayson Forbes ME $108M Deal: Ayala Land Snaps Up Former Media Giant's Property
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