HONG KONG: MiniMax Group Inc, one of China’s largest generative artificial intelligence (AI) startups, surged in Hong Kong after an initial public offering that raised US$619mil.
Shares closed up 109% in trading last Friday. The stock was priced at HK$165 or about US$21.17 apiece in an upsized offering, with retail investors subscribing to more than 1,830 times the shares available.
Backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, MiniMax is among the first of China’s post-ChatGPT generative AI firms to go public.
The gains came after rival Knowledge Atlas Technology JSC Ltd, known as Zhipu, delivered a more modest debut in the financial hub last Thursday.
The rally is supported by both short-term speculative buyers as well as longer-term institutional investors, according to Steven Leung, executive director at UOB Kay Hian Hong Kong. There may be some liquidity switching from the United States given worries over the AI bubble, he said.
MiniMax’s first-day stock performance suggests investor enthusiasm in China’s AI sector has broadened out beyond hardware makers to software firms.
Earlier, localisation demand drove chipmakers Moore Threads Technology Co and MetaX Integrated Circuits Shanghai Co to surge multifold on their first day of trade in Shanghai.
Zhipu, which rose 13% on its first session, added 21% last Friday.
“It is still early in the China AI investment cycle compared to global peers, so it may be difficult for investors to identify winners and losers,” said Marvin Chen, analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. — Bloomberg
