X Financial (NYSE:XYF) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Unidentified Analyst: No, I would — I think there was some kind of change in the valuation allowance and that impacted the reported tax rate that you show on your income statement. So fair to say that it’s going to be about 20% to 25% this year instead of what it was last year?

Frank Fuya Zheng: I think — yes, I think there’s 2 things. Once again, I think effective tax rate for 2023 were somewhere between 15% to 20%. And the line, you’ll see, I think if you see the tax line, income tax expenses for 2023, there’s a few tuning in our last 2021 Q4. There’s a special item called tax item, which is deferred tax allowance, which is about CNY 103 million. That is because we — for some reason, we — the reason I already explained last year, so we couldn’t use that deferred tax benefits, so that will be added to the last year. So actually, last year, 2021 the extra tax rate should be that number minus CNY 103 million, okay? That’s that is.

Unidentified Analyst: Okay. So it appears that, that specific issue will not be there — not be present in 2023. Is that correct? That change in valuation allowance?

Frank Fuya Zheng: Yes. If you see the — if you check the deferred tax allowance on the balance sheet, you will find that the number is dramatically come down, okay? That’s corresponding with the balance and the income statement is corresponding to item.

Unidentified Analyst: Great. Okay. Last question, and then I’ll drop back in queue for others to ask. You’ve done a very commendable job on your aggressive share repurchase. And I just wanted to say that I appreciate that. I’m just curious, do you still have — how much do you have left remaining on that share repurchase plan?

Frank Fuya Zheng: About $9 million. So far, we used up — from the $30 million, we used like a little bit over $21 million, so we have a $9 million left — about a little bit less than $9 million.

Unidentified Analyst: Okay. And it sounds like there was kind of an unusual situation. You had a cofounder that wanted to receive cash for his shares. Is that a — I mean do you still have others, large domestic shareholders who’re looking to sell? Or do you think that you might be able to repurchase more of the ADS as part of your repurchase plan?

Frank Fuya Zheng: Yes. The second largest shareholder, he sold his ordinary shares, he never even convert to ADS. He sold his ordinary share back to us in Q3 last year. And I think we don’t want to speculate the reason for that. But if we check, he is also the individual shareholder of the largest — the private owned banks in Shenzhen also. That may be the reason, but I’m not sure also — but to answer your question, I — based on the current volume we have right now on a daily basis, we don’t think we can buy much — buyback a lot of share back. Even last year, that we haven’t buy much back because the very low volume, almost no volume on our company trading volume. So we have 1 month or 2 months to set up the firm entity in Hong Kong to make that operational, that will take a little more than 6 months.