The Zhitong Finance App learned that according to people familiar with the matter, the German digital consumer finance bank Auxmoney is considering a number of strategic options including an overall sale or initial public offering. Centerbridge Partners, the company's major shareholder, is currently evaluating the relevant plan with Auxmoney management and other investors, but discussions are still in the preliminary stages, and no final decision has yet been made on whether to proceed with the sale or listing.
Both Auxmoney and Centerbridge declined to comment. Auxmoney is headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany. This potential transaction is also the latest example of recent mergers and acquisitions and continued heating up capital operations in the European financial industry.
As financial institutions' valuations gradually improved, more and more private equity institutions began to take the opportunity to withdraw from investment. At the end of last year, Blackstone Group (BX.US) agreed to sell NIBC Bank to Dutch banking giant ABN Amro for about 960 million euros; Cerberus Capital Management is currently promoting the sale of Hamburg Commercial Bank; and Lone Star Funds is studying the possibility of selling the German Industrial Bank IKB Deutsche Industriebank. Lone Star also sold Portugal's Novo Banco to the French BPCE Group for 6.4 billion euros last year.
Analysts believe that private equity institutions are actively promoting the withdrawal of investment projects against the backdrop of continued valuation restoration of European banks and fintech companies.
Founded in 2007, Auxmoney was initially a P2P (person-to-person) online lending platform dedicated to simplifying consumer loan applications through a fully digital process.
Since 2022, the company has gradually withdrawn from the crowdfunding model. Currently, all loan funds come from institutional investors and capital market asset securitization (ABS) financing.
Currently, Auxmoney mainly provides personal loans starting at 1,000 euros to German consumers, and uses a self-developed credit scoring system to assess borrowers' credit risk and digitize the entire loan approval process.
People familiar with the matter said that in recent years, Auxmoney has continued to increase the application of artificial intelligence technology, and currently more than 95% of loan approval processes have been automated by AI. Meanwhile, since Centerbridge took stock, the company's credit loss rate has dropped by about half.
Driven by continued business growth, Auxmoney's revenue has increased by more than 30% per year over the past five years.
According to the company's financial report, in 2024, Auxmoney achieved operating income of 265 million euros and net profit of 23 million euros. The main sources of revenue include consumer loan interest income and loan intermediary service fees. The company is expected to announce financial results for 2025 in the fall of this year.
In addition to Centerbridge, Auxmoney's shareholders include well-known venture capital institutions such as Index Ventures, Union Square Ventures, and Foundation Capital.
In October of last year, Auxmoney announced that it had successfully raised about 950 million euros from the open fixed income market by issuing securities based on German consumer loans, further enhancing its funding sources and lending capacity.
Analysts believe that with an AI-driven risk control system, continuously growing profitability, and a mature digital consumer finance model, Auxmoney has become one of the most attractive assets in the European fintech sector, and is expected to receive attention from the capital market regardless of whether it ultimately chooses to sell or IPO.