PrivEx, World’s First Licensed Loan Exchange Crosses US$1.2 Billion in Loan Listings and US$100 Million of Trades in Asia Pacific
Trading volume is expected to increase in 2023 with the continued momentum in Asia Pacific and expansion into EMEA; senior hires made in the UK and Asia to drive growth
1st FEBRUARY, 2023 – SINGAPORE/ HONG KONG/ TAIPEI/ LONDON – PrivEx (“the Exchange”), the world’s first licensed digital exchange for the trading of corporate bank loans, today announced it has recorded more than US$1.2 billion “live” offers on its Exchange over the last 6 months with US$100 million of trades done in Asia Pacific and these volumes are growing.
PrivEx, headquartered in Singapore, has been licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore as a Recognised Market Operator (“RMO”) since December 2019, allowing its ecosystem of banks and non-bank financial institutions to engage in the trading of corporate loans with realtime price discovery.
Launched in January 2022, PrivEx has built its member ecosystem to more than 40 international banks and funds across Australasia, EMEA, and the Middle East.
Tang P-Wa, co-founder and PrivEx CEO, on the company’s current performance said, “Achieving USD100 million in trades on the platform is a critical and major milestone for PrivEx, as it underscores the efficiency and industry adoption of our product, and allows us to continue to capitalise on gaps within the loan trading process. Through this small success and equipped with the prior knowledge that the latest available figures for 2021 for global syndicated lending volume, a subset of our addressable market, exceeded USD4 trillion, we believe that the growth potential for PrivEx is enormous as economies continue to recover”.
Building the Team
The transition from “voice” to “digital” trading for secondary loan trading is gaining momentum in Asia Pacific and PrivEx is expected to launch in EMEA in Q1 2023 with senior hires in Asia and the United Kingdom. Joining the senior PrivEx team are Dr Kate Kwan as Head of Sales, North Asia and Mr Simon Burdett as Head of Sales, EMEA. Mr Burdett will be based at PrivEx’s London office when launched in Q1 2023. The PrivEx team has been working with Julian van Kan, a long term syndications banker, in his capacity as an advisor and he will be working closely with Simon for the EMEA operation rollout. Their bios are appended. Sean Liu, PrivEx Chief Commercial Officer, commented on the senior hires, “The EMEA market is 6-8x of Asia Pacific’s and has been part of the expansionary plans since day 1. With prominent business and regulatory synergies across both regions and increased loan portfolio rebalancing activities, it made perfect sense for us to grow PrivEx’s geographical footprint on the back of the trades. The loan market is a people’s business and Simon brings immense market connectivity and domain experience to the table. The HK ecosystem has been developing very strongly and we also wanted to shore up our team with an individual who can assist in building the business, specifically with regards to trading activities. Kate was a perfect candidate given her stellar track record in loan sales and she has already proven to be a trailblazer since joining us”.Looking ahead to 2023
Clarence T’ao, a veteran banker now founder of an ESG education platform and advisor to PrivEx said, “It is gratifying not only to see secondary loan trading finally being brought online but also the variety of loans being traded, most notably an ESG loan, also across different financial centres in Asia. We can look forward to a greater diversity of loans being traded this year, especially with the inclusion of EMEA players on PrivEx.” Commenting on his involvement in the PrivEx role out in EMEA, Julian van Kan said, “What stood out for me is that the PrivEx team across its offices are all loan syndication experts. We are not from other parts of capital market product lines – we have all experienced first-hand the very problems that PrivEx is working on to solve. “The successful launch in Asia has been a terrific springboard for the development of the platform in Europe. We have introduced the exchange to over 40 banks and funds in Europe, and the response has been very encouraging. People have told us “It is about time someone came up with this” and “we welcome the transparency and efficiency of your platform and the very obvious liquidity that this will bring”, all extremely encouraging,” Mr van Kan added. PrivEx looks forward to an exciting 2023 as it continues to scale up in Asia Pacific while creating its footprint into EMEA. “In 2023, we expect strong growth in loan trading volumes in Asia, as banks and credit funds adjust their portfolios to capitalize on growth driven by China’s re-opening, and the need to rebalance loan portfolios. In EMEA, we expect the introduction of PrivEx to be very well received, particularly at a time when banks are having to address the impact of regulatory capital challenges. The regulatory environment continues to provide an impetus for growth in secondary volumes as banks adjust their portfolio to adhere to Basel IV rules,” said CEO Mr Tang.More about PrivEx
PrivEx is the world’s first and only licensed online digital exchange for corporate loans. Its members enjoy the use of its proprietary end-to-end trading solution, relieving them from “calling your 10 best friends” when trading a loan. Through its business model, members need only execute the global NDA and KYC once to ensure confidentiality in information transmission.
Through its digitised trading algorithms, trades can be listed and traded in less than 15 minutes as compared to expending approximately 19 man-hours under current protocols. “Calling your 10 best friends” results in the lack of transparency and accountability in secondary loan trading. PrivEx provides superior price discovery, enhanced liquidity and comprehensive data analytics. Moreover, PrivEx will be the only repository of actual traded prices and volumes.
For more information or interview requests, based on your city, please contact
Singapore
Mr Sean Liu
Chief Commercial Officer
Email: sean.liu@privexgroup.com
Mobile: +65 9834 4090
Hong Kong
Mr Clarence T’ao
Advisor
Email: clarence@privexgroup.com
Mobile: +854 9832 4770
Taipei
Ms Monica Chang 張致威
Head of Sales, Taiwan
Email: monica.chang@privexgroup.com
Mobile: +886 932 140 704
London
Mr Julian van Kan
Advisor
Email: julian@privexgroup.com
Mobile: +44 7710 995 644
APPENDIX – BIO-DATA OF NEW SENIOR HIRES
Dr Kate Kwan, Head of Sales, North Asia
Kate has over 25 years of banking experience. She has worked at SG Asia, HSBC, Citigroup, JP Morgan and Banco Santander. She has extensive experience over primary loan syndications, debt syndicate and sales, fixed income capital markets, loan distributions and secondary loans sales & trading.
She has been the Chairperson of the Secondary Loans Trading Committee of Asia Pacific Loan Market Association in 2013-2016. She has a Doctorate degree from The University of Newcastle, Australia, and is a Certified ESG Planner, CPA(US), CGMA and Financial Risk Manager.
Julian van Kan, Advisor, EMEA
Julian has spent much of his 40 years in investment banking in the loan syndications market. He was behind the development and growth of the business first at BNP and then ran the global Loan Syndications & Trading activity for the BNP Paribas which also included risk insurance. He was one of the original founding members of the Loan Market Association (LMA).
In 2011 he moved across to the coverage of Financial Institutions, first in EMEA and then APAC for BNP Paribas, and more recently held a similar role with MUFG. He has held Chair and non-executive roles in financial service related entities and remains engaged in similar roles in the health and education sectors and is an active angel investor in both Fintech and other industrial entities.
Simon Burdett, Head of Sales, EMEA
Over 36 years of banking experience, at various European financial institutions including, Scotia Capital, MUFG, Guy Butler and latterly Unicredit Bank. Encompassing 25 years of transacting in the Secondary Loan Market, trading par, distressed, single loans and portfolios, across EMNA including CEE, Russia and the US.
