Sea Ltd Plans Monee IPO as Its Fintech Loan Book Reaches $11.1 Bn

Sea Ltd, the Singapore technology group that owns the Shopee e-commerce platform and the Garena gaming business, plans to list its fintech arm Monee and launch an enterprise AI platform, according to an internal memorandum sent on October 20. Monee’s loan book stood at $11.1 Bn at the end of June.

Founded in Singapore in 2009 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 2017, Sea describes Shopee as the largest pan-regional e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia and Taiwan. Monee provides digital payments, lending and banking services across eight markets.

Founder and CEO Forrest Li outlined the plans in a memorandum to employees that Reuters reviewed. He said a public listing would give Monee additional resources and greater scope to expand. The company has not announced a valuation, offering size, listing venue or timetable.

The plan follows a quarter in which Monee’s revenue rose 58.9% YoY to $1.4 Bn, the fastest growth among Sea’s three main businesses in the three months to June.

Shopee’s revenue rose 48.2% to $5.6 Bn and Garena’s 33.5% to $746.6 Mn, according to Sea’s second-quarter results, released on August 11.

When Credit Drives Growth

Monee’s outstanding consumer and small-business loans reached $11.1 Bn at the end of June, up 62.5% from a year earlier. Of that, $10 Bn sat on Monee’s balance sheet, and $1.1 Bn was off-book, mainly loans other financial institutions made through its platform.

Lending, not payments, now drives Monee. Sea says consumer and small-business credit accounts for most of Monee’s revenue and operating income, although the unit also runs mobile wallets, payment processing and banking services.

Monee generated $288 Mn in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in the second quarter, up 12.8% YoY. Its adjusted EBITDA grew at less than a quarter of its 58.9% revenue growth, a gap prospective investors would want explained.

Sea’s segment disclosures show where the difference went. Monee’s revenue rose by about $520 Mn from a year earlier. Over the same period, its provision for credit losses climbed $238 Mn to $553.7 Mn, and its sales and marketing spending rose $171 Mn to $293.9 Mn. Together, these two costs absorbed close to four-fifths of the revenue increase.

Sea’s chief financial officer, Tony Hou, told analysts in August that higher provisions reflected a larger share of riskier loans. These were mainly loans in Brazil, which he called a high-interest, high-risk market, and purchases made outside Shopee using SPayLater, Monee’s buy-now-pay-later service. He said the shift towards lower-return segments, including prime borrowers and newer markets such as Thailand and Malaysia, was intentional.

Monee’s asset quality has held so far. Loans more than 90 days overdue were 1% of Monee’s consumer and small-business loans at the end of June, broadly unchanged from the previous quarter, according to Sea. The ratio covers both on-book and off-book lending.

Six of Monee’s eight markets are in ASEAN, including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines. The other two are Taiwan and Brazil.

A separate listing would let investors value Monee apart from Shopee and Garena, which have different revenue models, risks and capital needs. Sea has not said how it would structure the offering.

The case for a separate valuation rests partly on Monee’s weight in group profits. Based on Sea’s segment figures, it accounted for 18% of Sea’s second-quarter revenue but 31% of the group’s $917.2 Mn adjusted EBITDA.

Monee’s lending growth also needs funding. Sea reported $2.86 Bn in cash used to increase loans receivable in the first half of 2026, while deposits at its banks rose by $802 Mn and other credit funding brought in a net $440 Mn, according to the company’s cash flow disclosures. If the IPO involves issuing new shares, Monee could access equity capital on its own.

Sea’s Enterprise AI Expansion

Sea also plans to launch Sea Cloud, which the memorandum described as an AI-first enterprise platform.

The initiative would move Sea into selling technology to businesses, beyond its consumer-facing e-commerce, gaming and financial services. However, the company has not disclosed the platform’s commercial model, investment requirements, launch timetable or initial target markets.

The two moves take Sea in different directions: one towards giving its lending arm its own shareholders, and the other towards building a new business that sells to companies. How far either goes depends on details Sea has yet to disclose.

The memorandum was sent on the ninth anniversary of Sea’s October 2017 listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Li said the company’s quarterly revenue had increased more than 80-fold since its public-market debut. Its second-quarter group revenue was $7.8 Bn, up 48.1% YoY, while net income rose 10.6% to $458.1 Mn.

Pricing Monee on Its Own

A listing would give Monee its first standalone public-market valuation, built on a loan book that has expanded beyond Sea’s network of shoppers and sellers.

Once terms are disclosed, investors’ valuation will depend on how the loan book performs, how much it costs to keep growing, and whether Monee can turn faster revenue into faster earnings growth.