Zhipu Shares Jump After 5.76% Cornerstone Lock-Up Expiry; MiniMax Slides 18% on Bigger Unlock

Zhipu (02513.HK) and MiniMax (00100.HK), two Hong Kong-listed large-model AI companies that went public in early January, faced major share lock-up expiries this week, according to Jiemian News. On July 8, Zhipu saw cornerstone shares equal to about 5.76% of total share capital come off lock-up. Ahead of the expiry, several cornerstone investors said they would continue to hold long term, covering nearly 70% of the shares being unlocked. Zhipu fell nearly 10% intraday but reversed to close up 13.35% at HK$1,825, and rose another 11.34% the next day, with a market value of HK$906 billion. On July 9, MiniMax also had restricted shares unlocked, with analysts estimating the unlocked portion at about half of total share capital. Market talk said more than 80% of pre-IPO and cornerstone shareholders had indicated they would keep holding. The stock opened up more than 9% but later dropped as much as nearly 22% intraday, closing down 17.98% at HK$297.4, valuing the company at about HK$93.3 billion. Jiemian News cited Zhipu’s financials showing 2025 cloud deployment revenue (open platform and API) rose to RMB 190 million from RMB 48.484 million in 2024, while localized enterprise deployment revenue increased to RMB 534 million from RMB 264 million. Separately, media reports said MiniMax is developing a next-generation large language model with 2.7 trillion parameters, internally dubbed “M3 Pro,” which could be released as early as the third quarter and may be open-sourced.