MiniMax Answers Its Unlock Selloff With a Discounted HK$14.5 Billion Raise

The Raise That Followed the Unlock

MiniMax didn't wait for the unlock to finish playing out before adding to it. On July 9 the company launched a HK$14.54 billion (~$1.9 billion) capital raise, split between a discounted equity placement and convertible bonds. The equity leg is 30 million new shares priced at HK$268 — a 9.9% discount to the HK$297.4 close. Sitting alongside it is HK$6.5 billion of guaranteed convertible bonds carrying a 2.75% coupon, a HK$335 conversion price (a 25% premium to the HK$268 reference) and redemption at 102.75% of principal at maturity, arranged by Morgan Stanley and UBS. The perp reacted the way a stock does when its issuer prints new shares into a falling tape: down 23.87% over 22 hours to $37.19.

Supply Stacked on Supply

The timing is the whole story. The lock-up expiry had just turned roughly 45% of the float tradable, and in the same session the Hong Kong line plunged 17.98% to close at HK$297.4 on HK$6.84 billion of turnover — the very level the placement was then priced against. Stacking a discounted raise onto that is supply on top of supply: the company is competing with its own newly-freed holders to sell stock, and doing it below the market.

The HK$268 placement price is the number that matters. At the roughly 7.8 USD/HKD peg, the perp's $37.19 maps to about HK$290, leaving it only ~8% above the price at which MiniMax just agreed to sell fresh equity. A discounted placement resets the anchor — it hands every buyer a lower reference and signals what management is willing to accept when it actually needs the cash. The convertible layers on a second overhang: HK$335 of eventual dilution waiting in the wings if the stock ever climbs back to that strike.

A Chart That Was Already Broken

This raise is landing on a name that had already given back most of its debut run. MiniMax peaked near HK$1,330 in March at a market cap above HK$410 billion; by the July 3 close it was HK$346 and HK$108.7 billion — a 72% haircut from the top, though still up roughly 110% from its January IPO. The June 1 launch of the M3 model triggered a 15% single-day drop rather than a re-rating, and the tape has been leaking lower into every event since.

For a capital-intensive AI foundation-model company navigating US chip-export constraints, tapping the market is rational — training runs and inference capacity are not cheap. But raising equity at a 9.9% discount days after a supply cliff, rather than from a position of strength, is the tell. MiniMax needs the money more than it can afford to wait for a better print, and the perp is pricing the raise as exactly that — a cash call, not a vote of confidence.