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Key insights: Klarna named Chris Koegel, Robinhood’s head of corporate finance and investor relations, its new chief financial officer, effective January 1.
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What’s at stake: Klarna has struggled with its messaging to investors as the aspiring neobank looks to shift its balance sheet toward more long-term, fixed rate installment loans.
Klarna’s three-month search for a new chief financial officer has come to an end.
The aspiring neobanknamed Chris Koegel, Robinhood’s head of corporate finance and investor relations, its new CFO. Koegel’s tenure at the firm begins January 1, succeeding Niclas Neglén, who will end his six-year tenure at the beginning of the year.
“Chris’s experience as a finance leader at a US-listed consumer fintech business with a strong track record of growth and shareholder value creation will be invaluable as we enter the next phase in Klarna’s growth story,” Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarna’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.
Koegel joined Robinhood in 2022, when the fintech was valued at less than $10 billion; today, Robinhood has a market capitalization of about $75 billion. Prior to Robinhood, he was head of investor relations at LPL Financial, a San Diego-based wealth management firm.
Koegel will be tasked with reframing Klarna’s messaging to investors as it looks to shift its balance sheet toward more long-term, fixed rate installment loans, which the company calls Fair Financing.
Klarna has been expanding its longer-term lending portfolios in an effort to build out banking products beyond buy now/pay later, but accounting standards that require lenders to book loan loss provisions at the time of origination have increased expenses. Investors have questioned Klarna’s ability to balance those rising loss provisions with durable growth.
While Koegel has ample experience in financial services, an analyst at Keefe Bruyette and Woods said they expected Klarna to look for a finance chief with a background in lending.
“Mr. Koegel seems to have good experience in consumer financial services, including heading investor relations at Robinhood during the company’s recent success. We think someone with more of a lending background might’ve been preferential to the investment community,” KBW analyst Sanjay Sakhrani said in a research note. “At this point, the company has to improve its messaging and we hope Mr. Koegel can help accomplish that.”
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