Mineye navigates bumpy financial road littered with losses, stock volatility

The autonomous driving company has taken multiple new steps to support its shares, including share lockup period extensions, buybacks and increased purchases by some big investors

Key Takeaways:

• Mineye has conducted two share placements to raise additional funds in the year since its listing
• The autonomous driving technology company accrued aggregate losses of 760 million yuan between 2021 and 2024

By Lau Chi Hang

On Dec. 15, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced market access approvals for two Level 3 (L3) autonomous driving vehicles from the Deepal and Arcfox brands, greenlighting them to start road tests in Chongqing and Beijing, respectively.

That was all it took to ignite a new wave of speculative buying of autonomous driving technology stocks, including Minieye Technology Co. Ltd. (2431.HK), which surged nearly 50% within just four trading days. The jump was just the latest big move in a roller coaster ride for the company’s stock since its December 2024 listing.

After selling shares for HK$17 just over a year ago, Minieye’s stock rapidly climbed to a peak of HK$39.50 by March last year — more than double the IPO price. It underwent a reality check after that and traded sideways, still at elevated levels. Until November last year, that is, when anticipated selling by major investors after a lockup period was set to expire triggered a selloff that erased 60% of the stock’s value within one month.

Profit challenged

Only recently, with renewed investor enthusiasm for autonomous driving stocks, have Minieye’s shares begun to rebound, as it also announced a series of measures to support the stock.

In the latest of those, the company disclosed on Jan. 5 that major shareholders and several executive directors agreed to a 12-month extension of lockup periods for their holdings, which were originally set to expire last Dec. 17. The extension covers approximately 77.5 million shares, representing 18.4% of the company’s total. Additionally, two individual shareholders collectively holding 10 million shares pledged to extend their lockup periods by six months.

Concurrently, Chairman Liu Guoqing acquired 100,000 shares in the open market on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, at an average price of HK$13.27, spending about HK$1.33 million for 0.02% of the company’s issued shares. Separately, cornerstone investor Horizon Robotics purchased another 690,000 shares in the open market.

Later in the week, the company announced that it had repurchased an aggregate 3 million shares in the open market through Jan. 8 at an average price of HK$14.94 per share, spending HK$44.88 million ($3.5 million).

Can such support from major shareholders, combined with corporate buybacks, return the stock to a growth track? Perhaps it could in the short-term, given the current strong appetite for autonomous driving stocks. However, the fundamental driver of any stock ultimately remains a company’s performance. And for now, at least, Minieye’s financials are showing no significant breakthrough.

Most importantly, the company continues to report losses that are widening, rather than narrowing. Its net loss grew from 130 million yuan ($18.6 million) in 2021 to 216 million yuan in 2024, with cumulative losses of 760 million yuan over those four years. It lost another 152 million in the first half of 2025, 40% wider than the year-ago period.

The company was quite direct in its original listing documents, saying its development plan and management’s estimates at that time did not include any expectation of becoming profitable before 2026. Indeed, the red ink looks certain to continue for all of last year. And signs that the company may finally drive into the black this year have yet to materialize.

Frequent share placements, investor backtracking

Widening losses aside, some of Minieye’s actions over the past year have also dented investor confidence. Last July, just a half year after its listing, the company rushed to place 6.8 million shares at a steep 14.8% discount to the latest market price, selling them for HK$23.26 each to raise HK$155 million. Just four months later, it placed another 14 million shares at a nearly 10% discount, this time selling them for HK$14.88 each, raising another HK$204 million.

Two placements within a year of an IPO clearly shows the company is still burning through significant cash, and will likely continue tapping capital markets in the foreseeable future, creating a constant overhang for its stock.

Notably, one week before the first placement, cornerstone investor KCH International, which holds 31.09 million Minieye shares, pledged to extend its lockup period by three months from an original June 25 expiry date. It further committed not to sell more than 3.11 million shares in the nine months after the original lockup expiration.

But in August last year, the company disclosed that KCH International had revised its maximum planned disposal upward to 9.33 million shares due to “its own capital needs.” The abrupt reversal angered some investors, who questioned why KCH made commitments just days before the placement, only to renege just a month later.

Auditor change

The wild ride for Minieye’s stock doesn’t end there. In July last year the company abruptly announced it was changing auditors from PricewaterhouseCoopers to RSM Hong Kong, citing only a “comprehensive consideration of the company’s current business operations and future audit service requirements” for the switch. The sudden, thinly explained change baffled investors, particularly given PwC’s status as a global audit leader and the timing just six months after its IPO.

Although the recent purchases by major shareholders signal confidence, the modest scale — a mere 100,000 shares worth just over HK$1 million — makes the gesture mostly symbolic rather than substantive.

The company’s HK$44.88 million share buyback announced last week raises further questions, coming barely a month after it raised HK$204 million. Particularly perplexing is the buyback’s HK$14.94 average price — higher than its recent placement price of HK$14.88 — prompting scrutiny of management’s capital allocation rationale.

Investors should be aware that KCH International could dispose of over 9 million shares before March this year, while lockups for individual and major shareholders will now expire in June and December, respectively, creating multiple potential overhangs. And given KCH International’s precedent of reversing its previous commitments, there’s no guarantee that other investors might not do the same.

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