2024.08.09
On August 8, 2024, Black Sesame International Holding Limited (“Black Sesame”, stock code: 2533.HK) completed its initial public offering and was successfully listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It is the second company to be listed under Chapter 18C’s “Specialist Technology Companies” of the Main Board Listing Rules of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since the issuance thereof. Black Sesame offered 37,000,000 shares globally at HK$28 per share, raising HK$1.036 billion, and is the first smart driving chip company to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Established in 2016, Black Sesame is an automotive-grade computing SoC and SoC-based intelligent vehicle solution provider. SoC is an integrated circuit that integrates key electronic components including central processing units, memories and I/O interfaces. Black Sesame has designed two series of automotive-grade SoCs, the Huashan Series high-computing power SoCs and the Wudang Series cross-domain SoCs. It began offering autonomous driving solutions in 2020 and was one of the earliest companies in China to generate revenue from the sales of these. According to the public offering documents, in 2023 Black Sesame was the world’s third largest supplier in terms of shipments of automotive-grade high-computing power SoCs.
Black Sesame’s Hong Kong IPO was the second listing under Chapter 18C to be completed by JunHe after the listing of QuantumPharm, the first ever company to be listed under Chapter 18C. JunHe acted as the PRC legal counsel to the joint sponsor and the underwriter and assisted the sponsor in conducting legal due diligence on the issuer and its subsidiaries. They drafted, reviewed and revised the application and offering documents relating to the IPO, issued a complete set of legal documents for the overseas IPO filing with the China Securities Regulatory Commission, issued PRC legal opinions, and assisted in responding to queries from the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. JunHe finally helped Black Sesame successfully list on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Partners ZHANG, Ke and LI, Chenliang led JunHe’s team. The work was mainly undertaken by partners LI, Chenliang and WANG, Juewei (Jewel), with valuable support from partner ZHOU, Fang for the internal control. JunHe partner DONG, Xiao (Marissa) provided important support in respect of data compliance and partner TANG, Weiyang (David) provided important assistance in export control. JunHe partner YANG, Yinglei also helped at different stages during this deal.
