Founded just four years ago, Chinese AI large-scale language model developer MiniMax raised HK$4.82 billion (US$620 million) in its Hong Kong IPO on January 9, marking the largest IPO ever by an AI LLM company. Davis Polk, Jingtian & Gongcheng, Hogan Lovells, ZwillGen, Shook Lin & Bok, Maples Group, Freshfields, and Commerce & Finance Law Office provided legal support.
The company issued 29.2 million shares at a price of HK$165 per share. MiniMax's opening price started at HK$235.40, representing a 42.7% premium over the issue price, giving the company a market capitalization of over HK$90 billion.
The listing received a strong response from the market, with approximately 420,000 investors participating and an oversubscription rate of 1,837x, making it the second IPO in recent history to have over 400,000 individual subscribers.
Mr. Davis Polk served as the publisher's legal advisor in Hong Kong and the United States. The team was led by partners He Li and Jason Xu, supported by lawyers Kevin Zhang and Wendy Kan, international legal advisors Nie Yuqi and Chen Chaoran, and Chinese legal advisor Li Honzhu.
Jingtian & Gongcheng was led by partner Ling Tezhi, joined by partners Xie Jing and Hu Xingjie, with partner Zhou Yang providing data compliance advice and advising MiniMax on Chinese law.
Hogan Lovells advised the company on international sanctions matters. ZwillGen and Shook Lin & Bok provided U.S. and Singapore legal advice, respectively, including data compliance. Maples Group partner Karen Chan Pararas advised on Cayman Islands law.
Freshfields advised co-sponsors CICC and UBS and other underwriters on Hong Kong and U.S. law, and Commerce & Finance Law Firm acted as China legal counsel.
Founded in 2022, MiniMax focuses on developing general-purpose AI technology with multimodal integration across text, voice, and vision. Following the listing of Knowledge Atlas (also known as Zhipu) on January 8, MiniMax became the second of a group of domestic AI unicorn companies known in China as the “AI Six Tigers” to list in Hong Kong.
MiniMax completed seven funding rounds before its IPO, raising more than $1.5 billion from investors including Alibaba, miHoYo, Tencent, and Hillhouse Capital.
The prospectus states that proceeds from the IPO will be used primarily to fund research and development of basic models and AI-native products.
