SenseTime Shares Fall Sharply Following Founder's Death

SenseTime Group, an artificial intelligence software company, experienced a significant drop in their shares after the passing of its founder and controlling shareholder. The company's shares plummeted by 11% to 1.11 Hong Kong dollars (14 U.S. cents) on Monday morning, marking their largest daily decline since early July and resulting in a year-to-date loss of 49%.

Tang Xiao'ou, the company's controlling shareholder, passed away on December 15 due to health issues, as stated in an exchange filing on Sunday. Although the obituary posted on the company website did not disclose his age or the specifics of his illness, SenseTime assures investors that Tang's death will not have a substantial adverse impact on the daily management and ordinary business activities of the company, according to another exchange filing.

This news comes shortly after U.S. short seller Grizzly Research accused SenseTime, a Hong Kong-based partially state-owned company, of inflating its revenue. In response, SenseTime dismissed the allegations made in the report as containing "unfounded allegations, misleading conclusions, and interpretations," as stated in an exchange filing.

SenseTime specializes in developing technologies such as facial recognition, image recognition, and autonomous driving through the application of artificial intelligence. At the time of his passing, Tang had a net worth of $1.1 billion, as reported by Forbes.