Chinese artificial intelligence startup SenseTime is reportedly planning to relaunch its postponed $767 million IPO on Monday.
Sources claim the AI firm is set to try again with the initial public offering that they pulled the plug on after US President Joe Biden put the company on a blacklist over its alleged links to the Uyghur crackdowns in Xinjiang.
The US Treasury added SenseTime to a list of “Chinese military-industrial complex companies” last week accusing it of having developed a facial recognition programme to determine a target’s ethnicity, with a focus on identifying ethnic Uyghurs.
SenseTime and its advisers were working on Thursday to finalise the cornerstone investor stake in the new IPO, one of the sources said.
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It was likely the cornerstone stake would be about $450 million, in line with the first IPO attempt, but the composition of investors could change, they added.
SenseTime is expected to price the deal by the end of next week and list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange before December 31.
Chinese buyers were likely to take nearly all of the $317 million worth of stock in the IPO not taken by cornerstone shareholders, two of the sources said.
SenseTime had not expected the US decision, sources said at the time. It came as the bookbuild to raise $767 million was being finalised.
SenseTime could launch the deal on Monday to raise the same amount as the initial Hong Kong IPO, they said, pending approval from the Hong Kong exchange of the amended risk disclosures.
SenseTime had planned to sell 1.5 billion shares in a price range of HK$3.85 to HK3.99 each, according to its initial filings.
- Reuters with additional editing by Sean O’Meara
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