SenseTime relaunches $767m HK IPO after US investment ban

Chinese artificial intelligence start-up SenseTime Group (0020.HK) relaunched its $767 million Hong Kong IPO on Monday, a week after pulling the listing in the wake of the company's inclusion on a US investment blacklist.

SenseTime retained its target of selling 1.5 billion shares for between HK$3.85 and $HK3.99 each, according to regulatory filings, with the final price to be set on Thursday.

However, it will now rely on cornerstone investors to buy about $511 million, or around 67 per cent, of shares, up from $450 million, or 58 per cent, of shares previously.

SenseTime said its inclusion on the US blacklist did not impose any restrictions on its business operations, but added the resulting lack of US investors could impede its ability to raise capital in the future and reduce trading liquidity.

The US Treasury added SenseTime to a list of "Chinese military-industrial complex companies" on Dec. 10, accusing it of having developed a facial recognition programme to determine a target's ethnicity, with a focus on identifying ethnic Uyghurs.

UN experts and rights groups estimate more than a million people, mainly Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minorities, have been detained in recent years in a vast system of camps in China's far-west region of Xinjiang.