Banking: SoFi chief claims IPO in 2018 not a priority
Going public is not a priority for Social Finance in 2018, its new chief executive Anthony Noto said at the LendIt financial technology conference Monday in San Francisco.
Noto made the remarks shortly after the San Francisco company announced it had hired Michelle Gill as chief financial officer, effective April 30. Gill joins SoFi from TPG Sixth Street Partners but previously spent 14 years at Goldman Sachs, most recently as co-head of the structured finance business.
SoFi got its start refinancing student loans but now provides personal and mortgage loans and wealth management services. It aims to become an online financial services supermarket, mainly for high-earning 25- to 40year-olds who feel they are not being well served by other companies, Noto said.
Noto came to SoFi last month from Twitter, where he was chief financial officer and then chief operating officer. Before that he was cohead of tech investment banking at Goldman Sachs, the National Football League's chief financial officer and a tech analyst at Goldman.
He replaced former SoFi CEO and co-founder Mike Cagney, who left the company last fall amid allegations that he had inappropriate workplace interactions with em- ployees and may have made misstatements to investors.
Cagney is now co-founder of Figure, “a financial technology company with the mission of leveraging blockchain, (artificial intelligence) and advanced analytics to unlock new access points for consumer credit products that can transform the financial lives of our customers,” according to his LinkedIn page.
“We provide home equity release solutions, including home equity lines of credit, home improvement loans and home buy-lease back offerings for retirement.”
Noto had no comment on Cagney’s new company, nor on Twitter’s prospects, other than to say that he’s watching Twitter from the sidelines now and “will cheer them on every chance I can.”
Noto said when he joined SoFi, the company had already recognized the need to improve its culture. He admits that the company went through a tough time, but said the brand is durable and the momentum of the business never slowed down.
His priorities this year include strengthening SoFi’s core loan products, accelerating the build-out of its broadbased financial service offerings and “doubling down” in wealth management and Money, a mobile-banking product it’s developing. He said Money aims to have an interest-bearing checking account, free ATM access and a person-toperson payment system. Going public is not a priority, he added.
Noto said he met Gill through a mutual colleague, and at their first meeting, she said there was only a 1 percent chance she would join SoFi. She replaces Steven Freiberg, the interim chief financial officer who also serves as vice chairman of SoFi’s board of directors and will remain in that role.