Deregulation and Funding News Appear on the Same Day — How Zhipu and MiniMax Are Being Repriced

First, Look at the Price Path

The lock-up releases did not all occur on the same day. According to media statistics from Hong Kong Stock Decoder (港股解码), approximately 25.6816 million cornerstone investor shares of Zhipu were released on July 8, accounting for about 5.76% of the total share capital; approximately 146 million shares of MiniMax were released on July 9, accounting for about 46.44% of the total share capital, with its freely tradable shares prior to the release being less than 6%. This is a media statistic, not a company disclosure of actual reductions. It illustrates the magnitude differences in potential supply, but does not prove that these shares were sold on that day.

The daily chart first provides an overview. On July 9, the first trading day after the lock-up expiry, Zhipu closed higher while MiniMax-W closed lower; by July 10, both stocks declined, with Zhipu showing a larger trading volume and a bigger drop at close.

The price unit is in HKD; the change percentage is calculated based on the previous trading day’s closing price. The data comes from the Tencent Finance market data API. The number and percentage of unlocked shares are from the aforementioned media statistics, which are from different sources and use different calibers than the daily line data.

The two narratives diverged at different points in the trading session. MiniMax-W suffered steeper declines in the morning and early afternoon before staging a recovery, while Zhipu failed to follow with a rebound in the afternoon and continued to move lower toward the close.

This table illustrates the sequence of price movements, but does not establish causality. Unless there is verifiable evidence with timestamps, such as orders or the spread of news, a specific intraday turning point cannot be attributed to financing news, nor can actual reductions in holdings be inferred from the scale of unlocked shares.

The Price of New Money, and the Price of Old Money

MiniMax’s July 10 announcement is for a set of transactions yet to be completed: a proposed placement of 35.6 million new Class A shares, plus a HK$6.5 billion zero-coupon guaranteed convertible bond. Zhipu’s July 9 announcement, on the other hand, is a best-effort placement of 19.78 million new H shares, with the announcement explicitly noting that the transaction may not be completed.

The IPO has been completed; the Hong Kong stock follow-on financing in the table below remains a proposed transaction. The status column is intentionally shown separately to avoid treating the estimated net proceeds from the announcement as the existing cash balance.

If both MiniMax transactions are completed, the combined gross amount will be approximately HK$16.0408 billion, and the net amount will be approximately HK$15.9572 billion. This figure is roughly three times its IPO net proceeds after the full exercise of the over-allotment option. Zhipu’s proposed placement net amount is approximately 6.4 times its IPO net proceeds on the same basis. The numbers are large, but they do not automatically carry positive implications: money can extend the investment cycle, but it also makes the future cash return per share a more stringent question.

The placement price reflects the conditions under which the financing was negotiated, rather than the company’s overall valuation or target price. MiniMax-W’s placement price of HK$268 represents a 9.89% discount to the closing price of HK$297.4 on July 9; Zhipu’s placement price of HK$1,588 represents a 12.99% discount to the closing price of HK$1,825 on July 8. Differences in announcement disclosures, comparison benchmarks, and transaction methods mean this cannot be used to compare “which company received a steeper discount from the market.”

Convertible bonds also carry an additional layer of debt attributes, maturity, and conversion options. The initial conversion price of HKD 335 cannot be placed alongside the ordinary share placement price and treated directly as the market’s valuation conclusion for MiniMax. The secondary market closing price is merely the marginal transaction price under that day’s circulating supply, risk appetite, and information set — it does not represent the overall pricing the company obtained at the time of financing.

Implied equity value with similar IPO timing, later placed into different deal structures

Based on the IPO offering price multiplied by the number of shares issued after the IPO, the implied equity value of MiniMax is approximately HK$51.75 billion, while that of Zhipu is approximately HK$51.80 billion. This calculation merely reflects the equity prices derived from the two offerings at a unified IPO time point, and cannot serve as a substitute for subsequent market capitalization, nor should it be regarded as an official post-money valuation.

These two closely matched starting points help frame this week’s refinancing. The package offered by MiniMax is a combination of common stock and convertible bonds: one portion forms new shares after closing and issuance, while the other portion starts as debt, with future conversion depending on the terms and the holder’s choice. Zhipu is a best-efforts placement of a large amount of common stock, where the uncertainty around the new shares being issued and the completion of the financing is more directly placed on the trading table.

The market’s response on such announcement days isn’t simply answering the question of “whether anyone is willing to put up money.” It also weighs simultaneously the newly tradable or potential shares, the discount on the financing, whether the financing completes smoothly, the speed of capital deployment, and the demand for liquidity from existing shareholders after the lock-up expires. MiniMax faces a significantly larger potential supply of floating shares; Zhipu, meanwhile, confronts a best-efforts placement whose size far exceeds its IPO. These are testable backgrounds that explain the divergence—not a single-factor attribution for the moves on July 10.

There is still one more round for A-shares, but the amount cannot be factored in in advance

Both companies have disclosed the proposed RMB share matters, with varying progress and levels of information.

Adding the 15 billion yuan from this table to the cash Zhipu already holds is a common misreading. It is a project investment plan; whether the offering can actually proceed, at what price, and how much is ultimately raised still depends on subsequent procedures and disclosures. MiniMax’s announcement information is at an even earlier stage, and has not even provided the planned amount or use of proceeds.

LLM Funding Burns On — What Is the Market Watching Now?

The use of funds by large model companies is highly similar: models, compute, infrastructure, products, and globalization. The same destinations do not mean the same output. At this stage, the market’s judgment on financing has at least four sequential layers:

• Whether the transaction can be completed and what the actual net amount is;
• How the cash balance and future commitments on compute, training, and inference will change;
• How newly issued shares and potential convertible shares alter per-share equity;
• Whether revenue, gross margin, cash burn, and unit compute efficiency improve.

Refinancing allows the company to continue betting on next-generation models, and it also pushes the validation cycle to the next financial report and the next capital structure disclosure. The mid-session seesaw followed by a same-direction decline at the close on July 10 is only one slice. The true repricing will not get an answer until cash turns into sustainable revenue.

This article does not constitute investment advice.

References

• Tencent Finance: Zhipu 02513 Daily and Intraday Quotes; Intraday API.
• Tencent Finance: MiniMax-W 00100 Daily and Intraday Quotes; Intraday API.
• Hong Kong Stocks Decoded: Lock-up Expiry Schedule and Float Statistics for Both Companies. Compiled from media reports; not used as actual disposal data.
• MiniMax: Announcement of Proposed Placing and Proposed Issuance of Convertible Bonds on July 10, 2026.
• Zhipu Related Entities: Announcement of Proposed Placing of New H Shares on July 9, 2026.
• MiniMax: Final IPO Offer Price and Allocation Results; Announcement of Proposed Issuance of RMB Shares.
• Zhipu Related Entities: Final IPO Offer Price and Allocation Results; Announcement of Proposed Issuance of A Shares on the STAR Market.