The funding will fuel the company’s mission to make a North American education accessible to high-promise students from around the world

WASHINGTON, DC – Media OutReach – 21 July 2021 – MPOWER Financing, the leading provider of education loans to high-promise students around the world, today announced that it has raised an equity investment of US$100 million. The funding underscores investors’ confidence in MPOWER’s position as the leading lender for students aspiring to study abroad.

Founded in 2014 by Emmanuel (Manu) Smadja, MPOWER Financing aims to democratize education by reducing financial barriers for high-promise students from around the world. MPOWER’s loans are approved instantly and are granted at competitive interest rates without requiring a cosigner or collateral. MPOWER additionally provides students with academic, financial and career guidance to position them for success both in school and after graduation.

“We’re delighted to be working with experienced investors who share our vision of empowering the brightest students from around the world,” said Smadja, Chief Executive Officer of MPOWER Financing. “The new funds will be used to directly support students, automate and scale our operations, and to grow our team. We look forward to supporting an even greater number of qualified students around the globe as they study in the U.S. and Canada.”

“As a Qingdao’er who did my master’s degree in the U.S., I remember clearly the challenges – but also the opportunities – that arise from an overseas education,” said Mario Zhang, Interim Head of China at MPOWER Financing. “At MPOWER, I am honored to help future generations of students like me to access the world’s top universities without financial pressure and to build bridges between East and West.”

The new funding is in addition to the US$30 million MPOWER raised earlier this year from Tilden Park Capital Management, which also participated in the current round, and ETS Strategic Capital on behalf of ETS, the world’s largest non-profit educational assessment, research and measurement organization. Other investors in the current round include King Street Capital Management, Drakes Landing Associates, and Pennington Alternative Income Management.

“We are excited to partner with MPOWER Financing as it operates a truly differentiated business model where it not only lends to students, but also offers career guidance and supports students throughout their journey,” said Chris Gamaitoni, Managing Director of Tilden Park Capital Management. “The team’s mission and commitment to their students are inspiring. We are thrilled to support MPOWER Financing as it continues to expand its global reach and support even more students. We look forward to building on the company’s successes together.”

About MPOWER Financing:

MPOWER Financing, headquartered in Washington, D.C. and with offices worldwide, is a mission-driven fintech company and the leading provider of global education loans that do not require a cosigner. It is the only student lender worldwide that uses a proprietary algorithm to analyze overseas and domestic credit data and future earning potential to serve high-promise international and DACA students. MPOWER works with over 350 top universities across the U.S. and Canada to provide financing to students from 200+ countries. The MPOWER team, which consists heavily of former international students, helps build students’ credit histories and provides them with personal financial education and career support to prepare for life after school. MPOWER was named one of the best places to work, one of the best tech workplaces for diversity, and one of American Banker’s top fintech firms to work for four years in a row. The team is backed by Zephyr Peacock, Breega, Potencia Ventures, Goal Solutions, Gray Matters Capital, Cometa, AI8, DreamIt, 1776, Village Capital, Fresco, K Street, and University Ventures.

#MPOWERFinancing

About Tilden Park Capital Management:

Tilden Park Capital Management LP is a multi-strategy fixed-income-focused alternative asset manager headquartered in New York City. The firm concentrates primarily on structured products and mortgages, fixed income relative value and related corporate credit and equity strategies. Tilden Park is led by Chief Investment Officer Josh Birnbaum, who previously co-managed trading at Goldman Sachs’ Structured Products Group.

About King Street Capital Management:

King Street is a $20 billion global investment management firm founded in 1995 with offices in New York, London, Singapore, Tokyo and Charlottesville, VA. With over 25 years of experience as a global credit specialist, King Street employs a fundamental, research-intensive approach across multiple strategies, markets, industries and asset classes including an expanding lending platform.

Envision Digital’s AIoT operating system with Microsoft’s technology enables clean energy transition and helps organisations take action towards achieving Net Zero

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 21 July 2021 – Envision Digital International Pte Ltd (“Envision Digital”), a global Net Zero partner and an Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) technology leader announced a collaboration with Microsoft to implement net zero technology solutions. The collaboration with Microsoft will empower Envision Digital to pursue technical excellence and accelerate business growth with cloud adoption, with the objective to help organisations around the world meet energy efficiency goals while progressing on their digital transformation journeys.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) stated that all future fossil fuel projects must be scrapped if the world is to reach Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050, and to stand any chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. In a special report designed to inform negotiators at the crucial COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in November, the IEA predicted a sharp decline in fossil fuel demand in the next three decades, as well as a 2040 deadline for the global energy sector to achieve carbon neutrality.

In line with IEA’s report, Envision Digital has taken bold action to rally its collective efforts toward solving the climate crisis. The company is committed to becoming the world’s leading Net Zero technology partner for enterprises, governments, and cities, and has set challenging individual goals for carbon neutrality – its parent company, Envision Group, commits to be carbon neutral in its operations by 2022 and in its entire value chain by 2028.

In addition, Lei Zhang, the founder of Envision Digital and Envision Group, has been appointed into IEA’s Our Energy Future: The Global Commission on People-Centred Clean Energy Transitions commission. As the sole business leader in the commission, Lei provides valuable industry knowledge and expertise around clean energy transition, and on how organisations and businesses can achieve Net Zero with emerging technologies.

Headquartered in Singapore, Envision Digital owns EnOS™ – a world-class AIoT operating system that currently manages more than 200 gigawatts of energy assets globally. Driven by machine learning, Envision Digital’s proprietary monitoring, advanced analytics, forecasting, and optimising applications provide actionable insights and reliable controls to better manage assets’ energy performance.

Therefore, the collaboration between Envision Digital and Microsoft will use Envision Digital’s AIoT technology and Microsoft’s worldwide channels and industry experiences in the pursuit of technical excellence. Working together with Microsoft, Envision Digital aims to build and operate EnOS™ as an advanced AIoT platform, benefitting from Microsoft technologies.

“By combining Envision Digital’s AIoT capabilities and Microsoft’s solutions, organisations will be able to quantitatively track and measure emissions across their entire value chain, and ultimately, do their part in building a green and sustainable future powered by clean energy. This collaboration will advance our broader goal of bringing more net zero partners on our journey towards carbon neutrality,” said Michael Ding, Global Executive Director, Envision Digital.

To accelerate its collaboration as well as technology innovations with Microsoft, Envision Digital will use Microsoft Azure as its cloud platform. The technical integration of Envision Digital’s EnOS™ and Azure IoT, Data and AI platform services will help businesses accelerate their digital transformation goals and take action toward more sustainable business practices.

“Microsoft has set bold sustainability commitments and by partnering with organisations like Envision Digital, we are able to help advance the efforts to achieve a net zero carbon future,” said Jeyan Jeevaratnam, strategic partnerships lead, Microsoft Asia. “Envision Digital has successfully implemented the EnOS platform across smart buildings and facilities, including on Microsoft campuses in the Greater China region. Through our relationship, Envision Digital will use Microsoft Azure to reach a greater number of businesses and industries to help them build a more sustainable future.”

About Envision Digital:

Envision Digital is focused on bringing technology solutions to the sustainability challenge. Its world-class AIoT technology helps governments and companies across the world accelerate progress toward a Net Zero future and improve their citizens’ quality of life. Having established itself as a leading solutions provider for intelligent renewable energy generation, consumption efficiency and smart and flexible storage, it has extended its capabilities beyond energy to enable and optimise applications – notably in smart cities, smart buildings and estates, smart plants, smart infrastructures and e-mobility.

EnOS™, Envision Digital’s proprietary AIoT operating system, connects and manages more than 100 million smart devices and 200 gigawatts of energy assets globally, while its growing ecosystem of more than 350 customers and partners spans 10 industries and includes Accenture, Amazon Web Services, GovTech Singapore, Keppel Corporation, Microsoft, Nissan, PTT, Sonnen, Solarvest and Total. The company has close to 700 employees and 12 offices across China, France, Japan, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with headquarters in Singapore.

For more information, please visit: https://envision-digital.com/

#EnvisionDigital

Successfully issued the second tranche of domestic corporate bonds

Strengthen the debt structure and lower the financing costs

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 21 July 2021 – CIFI Holdings (Group) Co. Ltd. (“CIFI” or the “Group”, HKEx stock code: 884), a leading real estate developer engaging in property development and investment in first-, second- and robust third-tier cities in China, is pleased to announce that from 8 July 2021 to 20 July 2021, its major shareholders Lin’s Family increased their shareholdings again, of which Executive Directors and controlling shareholders, Mr. Lin Zhong, Mr. Lin Wei and Mr. Lin Feng, had purchased an aggregate of 15,102,000 shares of CIFI at a total consideration of approximately HK$80.65 million. Executive Director and CFO, Mr. Yang Xin and his spouse also purchased 1,000,000 shares on 20 July 2021.

Immediately after the purchase, Lin’s Family owns 4,511,682,342 shares, representing approximately 54.58% of the total issued share capital of CIFI as 20 July 2021.

In addition, the Group successfully completed the public issuance of the second tranche of the domestic corporate bonds on 20 July 2021. The actual size of the bonds is RMB3.0 billion with a coupon rate of 4.2% per annum and the maturity is five years, with an option for the Issuer to adjust the coupon rate and a put option for investors at the end of the third year. The price of the domestic corporate bond is at the lowest since 2021 for private real estate developers with the same maturity and the issue size of more than RMB3.0 billion. The total bids are RMB4.79 billion with over 1.6 times subscriptions. Among them, non-bank institutions actively subscribed and the final coupon rate was 4.2 %.

The spokesperson of CIFI said, “The increase in shareholding by the controlling shareholders and management reflects their strong confidence in CIFI’s long-term development and room for future increase in stock price. In addition, facing the severe macroeconomic situation and volatility in risk appetite in the capital market, with the strive of the corporate team, coupled with the support of managements, they created excellent results in the open market. Looking ahead, CIFI will continue to lower the overall financing costs and strengthen the debt structure to implement prudent financial management and consolidate the leading position in the Chinese property market and generate encouraging return to our shareholders.”

About CIFI (Group):

Headquartered in Shanghai, CIFI is one of China’s top real estate developers. CIFI principally focuses on developing high-quality properties in first-, second- and robust third-tier cities in China. CIFI develops various types of properties, including residential, office and commercial complexes.

To learn more about the Company, please visit CIFI’s website at: www.cifi.com.cn

#CIFI