Leading Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company SenseTime saw its shares plunge as much as 51% on Thursday after a key lock-up period expired.
Its Hong Kong-listed shares recovered to be 43% down at noon Hong Kong time, after investors engaged in profit-taking.
SenseTime revived a Hong Kong listing plan after the US placed the company on a national security blacklist.
The lock-up expiry on Wednesday affected some stock owned by the company’s cornerstone investors.
The company said in a statement that management had undertaken not to sell shares before the next lock-up period expires in December.
Last December, the company’s shares jumped as much as 23% from their IPO price as they debuted on the Hong Kong stock exchange.
The start-up raised $740 million in its IPO and priced its shares at HK$3.85 ($0.49) each, at the bottom of the range flagged, valuing SenseTime at $16.4 billion.
The gains on debut were in contrast to most analysts’ expectations that the shares would slip or trade flat due to the relative weak demand during the IPO process.
- George Russell
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