Prominent SenseTime investors sell shares

Alibaba has sold 557 million of its shares in SenseTime, reducing its ownership stake in the Chinese facial recognition “dragon” from 5.29 percent to 3.15 percent, according to Hong Kong publication The Standard. It is not the only major shareholder cutting its stake.

By bringing its ownership holding below 5 percent of the company, Alibaba is now no longer bound by regulations to disclose any further share purchases or sales, so long as it remains below the threshold.

The sales took place over several transactions, the report says. The last two came within the last month, and raised HK$267 million (approximately US$34.15 million) for Alibaba. Altogether, Alibaba’s unloaded SenseTime stock has brought in over HK$1 billion ($130 million).

Japanese investment holding company SoftBank Group sold 50 million shares in SenseTime for HK$138 million ($17.65 million), the fourth divestment of the company’s stock it has disclosed during 2023.

The overall climate for sales of SenseTime’s facial recognition and other AI applications has worsened considerably since the U.S. imposed sanctions on the company.

SenseTime’s share price is down more than 15 percent so far in 2023, despite a brief surge powered by the company’s launch of a large-language model to rival those from company’s like Baidu and OpenAI.

Article Topics

Alibaba Group  |  biometrics  |  China  |  facial recognition  |  investment  |  SenseTime  |  stocks