LoanDepot IPO Looks Attractive This Week, Next To Early Stage Healthcare Deals

loanDepot Incorporated (NYSE: LDI) expects to raise $510 million in its upcoming IPO. Based in Foothill Ranch, California, loanDepot offers nonbank consumer lending solutions for individuals throughout the United States.

We previewed LDI last week on our IPO Insights platform.

loanDepot will offer 30 million shares at an expected price of $16 to $18. If the underwriters price the IPO at the midpoint of that range, loanDepot will have a market capitalization of for a market capitalization of $2.5bmillion.

loanDepot filed for the IPO on October 8, 2015.

Lead Underwriters: Barclays Capital, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo Securities

Underwriters: BMO Capital Markets, Citigroup Global Markets, JMP Securities, Raymond James & Associates, UBS Investment Bank, and William Blair & Associates

Business Summary: Nonbank Consumer Lender

loanDepot is a nonbank consumer lender of mortgage and nonmortgage loans that serves customers under the brand names loanDepot.com, imortgage, LDWholesale, and Mortgage Master. The company offers residential home, home refinancing, home equity loans, mortgages, and personal loans. Its distribution channels include online, consumer direct centers, wholesale centers, retail branches, and consumer finance and servicing centers in the United States.

The company has over 5,000 employees, including over 1,500 licensed loan officers. loanDepot is licensed in all 50 states and operates four online direct-lending business centers and over 130 retail branch locations.

loanDepot is an approved provider and servicer of Fannie Mae, FHA, VA, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae loans.

For the twelve months ended June 30, 2015, the company originated $22.1 billion in loans, which represents a 125 percent year-over-year increase. The company notes that it successfully maintained profitability since 2012.

For the six months ended June 30, 2015, 41.3 percent of loans originated through the direct retail channels, 48.3 percent came from the distributed retail channel, and 10.4 percent originated through the wholesale channel. Personal and home equity loans are facilitated through the retail channels, and the company expects that all of its consumer credit products will be available throughout its distribution channels in the near future.

Executive Management Highlights

Chairman and CEO Anthony Hsieh founded loanDepot in December 2009. His previous experience comes from senior positions at LendingTree, Home Loan Center, and he founded LoansDirect.com in 1989, which was acquired by E*TRADE Group in 2001.

CFO John Frojen has served in his position since August 2014. His previous experience includes senior financial positions at Cetera Financial Group, Milestone Advisors, Indymac Commercial Lending Corporation, and Bridgefield Mortgage Corporation.

Potential Competition: Banks, Credit Unions, Online Lending Platforms

Generally, loanDepot competes with alternative, non-bank lenders such as credit marketplaces and originate-to-hold lenders. Other competition comes from traditional sources such as banks, credit unions, and savings and loans. Online peer-to-peer lending platforms represent a third source of fairly significant competition, such as Kabbage and Lending Club (NYSE:LC).

Financial Overview: Healthy Top and Bottom Lines

loanDepot provided the following figures from its financial documents for the six months ended June 30:

As of June 30, 2015:

Conclusion: Take a Chance On LDI

We are keen on this deal, given the large syndicate (led by Goldman Sachs) and impressive growth figures. Financial IPOs are the second largest sector by number of deals YTD with 21 offerings bringing avg. total returns of over 6%.

The deal also stands out against three healthcare deals, pricing earlier (AAAP,MESO, and WVE).

Of course, certain risks do apply; LDI highlights the risk of its not being able to continually grow loan production volume, along with its $1.5 billion of outstanding indebtedness.

We hear the deal is already oversubscribed.