Source: Caixin.
By issuing B-shares, SenseTime plans to raise HKD 2 billion. It is reported that multiple strategic investors and top overseas funds will increase their shareholding.
Officials at SenseTime Technology also revealed that they will release the 5.5 model of the Renshouxin AI on July 5th at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference.
In this morning's announcement, SenseTime has signed a placement agreement with agents to issue approximately 1.673 billion shares through at least six placing participants, representing approximately 4.76% of the enlarged share capital. The placing price per share is HKD 1.20, which is a discount of approximately 9.1% from the closing price of HKD 1.32 per share of B-shares reported on the HKEx on June 20, 2024.
In this morning's announcement, SenseTime and its placing agents have entered into the placing agreement to issue approximately 1.673 billion shares through at least six placing participants, representing approximately 4.76% of the enlarged share capital. The placing price is HKD 1.20 per share, representing a discount of approximately 9.1% from the closing price of HKD 1.32 per share of existing B-shares as reported on the Stock Exchange on June 20, 2024.
Assuming that all the subscribed shares are successfully subscribed, a total of HKD 2.008 billion is expected to be raised upon completion of the placement. After deducting the placement commission and other related costs and expenses of the placement, the net proceeds are approximately HKD 1.995 billion. Based on this calculation, the net issue price of the placement shares will be approximately HKD 1.19 per share. The proceeds from the placement will be primarily used to expand the scale of Sensetime's industry-leading Sensetime large-scale equipment, support further development of Generative Artificial Intelligence (including large model research and product development), and as general working capital for the company.
Regarding this matter, Sensetime responded to the Star Daily that it has received a HKD 2 billion investment, and that many strategic investors and top funds have increased their shareholdings.
Senior investment banker Wang Jiyue told the Star Daily that this is a normal refinancing model, and that the rights issue is beneficial to the original shareholders.
A relevant person in charge of Sensetime also revealed that the DaiDaiXin 5.5 model will be released at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference on July 5th. In April of this year, Sensetime released the DaiDaiXin SenseNova 5.0 model system, claiming that its performance surpasses GPT-4Turbo, and that the context window for inference can be effectively up to 200K, and launched the Sensetime edge model for terminal devices. The Sensetime stock price soared after this news was released.
After the announcement of the fund-raising plan, SenseTime's stock price initially dropped more than 6% but subsequently rose slightly.
Renowned economist Pan Helin believes that rights issues are common in the Hong Kong stock market, but they are not necessarily popular with investors. Hong Kong stock investors attach great importance to cash flow returns, so Sensetime's rights issue may have an impact on its stock price performance in the short term. Financing is a necessary means for Sensetime to maintain its operations. ``The key to Sensetime is still to accelerate the landing of AI applications to achieve self-generating capabilities.''
Editor/Jeffy