Societe Generale Lists 3x MiniMax Note, Long Side Only, Six Days After the Probe Selloff

A 3x long MiniMax note began trading on 29 September, six days after a data-probe selloff left the stock at HK$268.2. There is no short version, mainland buyers already hold 9.7%, and the company Beijing summoned but has not cleared just shipped a model with no price.

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Vincent JiangVincent Jiang · 3 min read
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Societe Generale's historic head office at 29 boulevard Haussmann in Paris, the bank's red and black logo on the facade
Societe Generale, issuer of the 3x long MiniMax certificate, at its historic head office at 29 boulevard Haussmann, Paris.

Leverage arrives six days after the selloff

Societe Generale switched on a 3x long certificate on MiniMax (00100.HK, ticker SQIW.SG) on 29 September, in a batch that also covers Zhipu, GigaDevice and, from 7 October, Hua Hong Grace 1. All four notes are denominated in Singapore dollars, so the buyer takes Hong Kong exposure without converting currency 1.

The worked example on Longbridge's listing note prices entry at about S$200, against roughly S$10,000 for a board lot of the underlying shares 1. And the menu runs one way. The long side of MiniMax is for sale at three times leverage; the short side is not for sale at all, with no 3x short listed on any of the four stocks 1.

Summoned, not cleared

The listing landed six days after the probe-day selloff. On 23 September MiniMax closed down 6.4% at HK$268.2 and Zhipu fell 11.5%, on reports that Chinese regulators were examining whether large-model firms had fed sensitive user data into overseas systems 2. The trigger was Anthropic's 10 September report naming seven Chinese companies, MiniMax among them 3.

The Cyberspace Administration summoned all seven firms, then narrowed its questioning to DeepSeek and Moonshot 3. One account of the tally put MiniMax at 13 million Claude exchanges; wider reporting has not itemized the company's share 4. The combined count across the seven ran to roughly 190 million exchanges, more than 151 million of it attributed to Alibaba, which is not under inquiry 3. What holders carry is the risk of a widening, not a verdict: the regulator has set no timetable and named no penalties 3.

Mainland buyers already hold 9.7%

Mainland investors bought HK$10.6 billion (US$1.4 billion) of the stock through Stock Connect in August, more than Alibaba or Tencent, and hold a 9.7% stake built since the link opened on 6 August 6. The certificate stacks borrowed exposure onto that crowd at the exact price the selloff left behind 2.

The probe selloff left MiniMax at HK$268.2, where the new money got in

-15%-10%-5%0%Zhipu-11.52%MiniMax-6.35%closed at HK$268.2, the placement levelAlibaba-4.36%SenseTime-3.56%Xiaomi-3.38%Tencent-2.75%Kuaishou-2.18%Baidu-1.01%
Data
Value
Zhipu-11.52%
MiniMax-6.35%
Alibaba-4.36%
SenseTime-3.56%
Xiaomi-3.38%
Tencent-2.75%
Kuaishou-2.18%
Baidu-1.01%
One-day change on 23 September 2026, Hong Kong-listed AI and tech names, on reports Chinese regulators were probing large-model firms over user data routed to overseas models. Closing values as reported in ETNet's quote table. Source: ETNet, 23 September 2026.2

Tokens without a price tag

The bull case is not a shrug. Chinese models took 57% to 67% of all tokens on OpenRouter in the week of 14 September, up from 6% to 13% in February; on Vercel their share rose to 55% in August from 11% in January 7.

Yet two days before the note went live, MiniMax turned on M3.1-Flash-Preview inside its own coding tool with no model card, no benchmarks and no price 8. The line it extends, M3, sells at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 output, against Claude Sonnet 5 at $2 and $10 9. Developers had already fingerprinted a free anonymous model, Space Bunny Alpha, as a likely early MiniMax build, 24 probes out of 24 matching; the company has not confirmed it 9.

MiniMax's M3 undercuts Claude Sonnet 5 six- to eight-fold on token price

  • Input
  • Output
$0$5$10MiniMax M3Claude Sonnet 5$2$0.3$10$1.2
Data
InputOutput
MiniMax M3$0.3$1.2
Claude Sonnet 5$2$10
Published prices in US dollars per million tokens: MiniMax M3 at $0.30 input and $1.20 output; Claude Sonnet 5 at $2 input and $10 output. Source: StartupFortune, 28 September 2026.9

Two doors: a widening probe, and Washington's committees

Watch two doors. Beijing's probe could stay at two firms or widen to the five others it summoned 3, and two US House committees are already investigating Chinese model adoption 7. If the widening comes, the note that went live on 29 September 1 sits at the front of it, three times over.

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