finance
MiniMax Shares Drop 70% From March Peak Ahead of Lockup Expiry
MiniMax Group shares have fallen more than 70% since a March record as lockup periods on additional shares expire this week. The Hong Kong-listed AI developer lost $39 billion in market value from its peak.
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MiniMax Group shares have fallen more than 70% from a March record of HK$1,330 as the company prepares for the expiration of lockup periods on Wednesday. The Hong Kong-listed AI model developer has lost $39 billion in market value since its peak, reducing founder Yan Junjie's net worth to $3.3 billion from a high of $12.6 billion.
The company completed a $619 million initial public offering in January. Its shares remain up 1.6% for the year despite the sharp decline from the March high.
MiniMax released its M3 model in June, stating the product offers frontier-level performance on coding and agentic tasks. The company said M3 shows significant improvements over the prior M2 model released late last year. A Shanghai-based analyst at 86Research said the market views MiniMax at a disadvantage domestically compared with rival Zhipu.
Zhipu shares have risen nearly 1,300% this year after its GLM 5.2 model release.
Lockup periods on about 153.5 million MiniMax shares end Wednesday, increasing the free float to over 50% from 4.1%, according to a June research note from DZT Research. The same note stated analysts remain bearish on the stock due to unproven model performance.
Alibaba Group Holding, a key cornerstone investor, confirmed it remains bullish on MiniMax technology and is willing to collaborate on cloud computing and enterprise services. A BofA Securities note from June said the valuation gap with Zhipu could support a catch-up trade after lockup expiry and potential inclusion in the Stock Connect Southbound link.
