BRIEF: MiniMax shares soar in Hong Kong debut

Shares of AI company MiniMax Group Inc. (0100.HK) jumped in their Hong Kong trading debut on Friday, after it raised HK$4.6 billion ($590 million) by selling 29 million shares to investors for HK$165 apiece. The stock opened up about 43% and continued to rise through the morning session to close up 78% at HK$294 by the midday break.

The Hong Kong portion of the listing for local investors was more than 1,800 times oversubscribed, while the international portion was more than 35 times oversubscribed. More than half of the shares were sold to a group of 14 cornerstone investors, including the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, IDG and Mirae Asset Securities.

MiniMax has developed several AI foundation models that can understand, generate and integrate a wide range of modalities, including text, video and audio. Its revenue in the first nine months of last year more than doubled to $53.4 million from $19.5 million in the year-ago period. The company’s loss widened to $512 million in the nine-month period from $304 million a year earlier.

By Doug Young

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