LendingClub finds a wealthy friend

There’s a new high-level member of the LendingClub.

The online loan facilitator said Monday that units of Shanda Group, Chen Tianqiao’s Singapore-based private investment firm, had purchased an 11.7 percent stake in the company, including call options.

The vote of confidence in the San Francisco company — whose shares were down 43 percent since Chief Executive Renaud Laplanche was forced to resign earlier this month — sent LendingClub’s stock up 7.8 percent in Monday morning trading, to $4.30.

Laplanche was ousted after an internal probe found that the company had knowingly sold an investor $22 million of loans the investor did not want — and that some executives knew of the investor’s wishes but ignored them.

LendingClub is by far the largest of the so-called marketplace lenders, which sell their consumer and small-business loans on to investors.

Shanda Asset Management Holdings Ltd., one of the Shanda Group affiliates, bought a total of 29 million LendingClub shares for $148.7 million, according to a regulatory filing. It also owns options to buy 15.7 million more shares for $11.2 million.

The shares represented “an attractive investment opportunity,” it said in the filing.

“We have been in discussions with Shanda regarding their investment and we look forward to a continued dialogue with them,” a LendingClub spokesman said.

With Post wires