SenseTime’s Hong Kong IPO oversubscribed, minus American investors after US sanctions
- The artificial intelligence (AI) company may have received orders for about HK$2 billion from retail investors when the books closed at noon on Thursday
- The 2.3-times oversubscription pales in comparison to the four-times that SenseTime received earlier this month before its addition to a US sanctions list
SenseTime Group’s initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong was oversubscribed, as global investors – minus Americans – shrugged aside US sanctions to bid for shares in one of the world’s premier artificial intelligence (AI) companies.
SenseTime received about HK$2 billion (US$256 million) of orders for the retail tranche of its relaunched IPO when the books closed at noon, an oversubscription of about 2.3 times, according to estimates by brokers. Shares of the company will trade for the first time on December 30, marking Hong Kong’s biggest IPO since September.
The result paled in comparison with the four-times oversubscription received by the Hong Kong-based company in early December before it was added to the US government’s sanctions list under the Uygur Forced Labor Protection Act. Even though the sanction did not bar US investors – both institutional funds and individual investors – from owning shares of SenseTime, the company excluded them from its stock sale.
“SenseTime’s current offering excluded Americans from buying its shares, which limited the pool of investors buying the stock,” said Tom Chan Pak-lam, chairman of Hong Kong Institute of Securities Dealers, an industry body of local brokers. “However, the quick relaunch and the oversubscription proves the resilience of Hong Kong’s IPO market when it’s faced with US sanctions.”
SenseTime postponed its IPO last week, becoming the biggest corporate casualty yet of the US legislation that passed earlier this month in the US House of Representatives.