Why can't I find Lending Club on the SEC web site?

I recently recommended Lending Club to someone and they wanted to see where there was evidence of registration with the SEC, so I went to sec.gov and searched for "Lending Club" and found nothing. What?!?! I know that sometimes the official name of a company is not exactly the same as the name that we in the general public use, so I went to the Lending Club web site and looked up one of their SEC filings to get the exact company name. On the most recent 10-Q it is "LendingClub Corporation", so it made no sense that it was not found. I stared intently at for for a bunch more seconds and the spacing or lack thereof jumped out at me. So, I tried my search on sec.gov for "LendingClub" (without a space) and lo and behold I now see the SEC filings for LendingClub (not Lending Club.)

 

All these months (years now), I have been referring to Lending Club (with a space) when it is supposed to be LendingClub (no space.) Sigh. But now I know better.

 

I checked the company web site and they use "Lending Club" (with a space) almost everywhere, except in graphics and the legal agreements where the specific company name is required.

 

AFAICT, "Lending Club" (with a space) is essentially a brand or service mark.

 

In short, it appears to be A-OK to refer the "Lending Club" (with a space), unless you are searching on the SEC web site, or referring to the official, legal name of the company – LendingClub Corporation.

 

I have been remiss at reporting my ongoing experiment with Lending Club investments. My return had been up near 15.50%, but then I got hit with a fair number of defaults over the past year. Currently, my net annualized return over the past three years (in June) is 7.72%. I am continuing to re-invest all cashflow, but I haven't added any fresh money recently. I am basically waiting for that wave of defaults to stabilize and then take stock and come up with a revised investment plan. There are still a couple more left. One recent action that I took was to raise my minimum credit score requirement a notch (above 700). I am hoping that will reduce future defaults a bit.

-- Jack Krupansky