Offshore Trust Insight | RoboSense (02498.HK) total market capitalisation at HKD 6.957 billion, the Three Founders Hold 101.93 Million Shares via Trusts with the Same Trustee

On October 16, 2026, the lidar and physical AI theme traded in a volatile range, and RoboSense (02498.HK) closed higher. At the close, the company was quoted at HKD 14.780, up 1.23% on the day. (Note: October 19 was a Hong Kong public holiday with the market closed; this article uses the latest trading day's closing figures.)

Public information shows that RoboSense Technology Co., Ltd listed on the Main Board of HKEX on January 5, 2024 at an offer price of HKD 43.000, offering about 22.9098 million shares globally and raising net proceeds of about HKD 877 million; on its debut the stock closed flat at HKD 43.000, giving a market capitalisation of HKD 19.32 billion. The company is a lidar and perception solutions provider, recording revenue of RMB 1.941 billion in 2025, of which products for ADAS accounted for 56.98% and products for robotics and other fields 36.57%. As at the close on October 16, the share price had fallen 65.6% cumulatively from the offer price and was 64.4% below its 52-week high of HKD 41.460, with total market capitalisation at HKD 6.957 billion; the 52-week low of HKD 14.510 was recorded recently.

In terms of shareholding structure, the company's three founders — founder and CEO Qiu Chunxin, co-founder and Chief Scientist Zhu Xiaorui, and co-founder and CTO Liu Letian, acting in concert — collectively control about 20.57% of the equity. Among them, Qiu Chunxin holds 49,367,683 shares through the BlackPearl entities, or 10.19%; Zhu Xiaorui holds 29,604,176 shares in long position through the Emerald Forest entities, or 6.11%, together with a disclosed short position of 7,300,000 shares, or 1.51%; Liu Letian holds about 4.25% through Sixsense. Alibaba's Cainiao was the largest institutional investor before the IPO. According to the HKEx disclosure of interests, the trustee TMF (Cayman) Ltd. held 101,931,831 shares in long position in aggregate, representing 21.04% of the issued voting shares.

It is understood that RoboSense's shareholding structure involves offshore trusts. According to the listing documents, the shareholding platforms of each of the three founders are held in trust by the professional trust company TMF (Cayman) Ltd. as trustee: Qiu Chunxin's platform BlackPearl Investment Limited is held by TMF (Cayman) Ltd. as trustee of a trust, with Sunton Global and Dr. Qiu as beneficiaries, and the holding chain runs from the trust to BlackPearl Investment Limited to BlackPearl Global Limited and then to the company's 49,367,683 shares; Zhu Xiaorui's platform Emerald Forest Investment Limited is held by TMF (Cayman) Ltd. as trustee of a trust, with Emerald Forest Holding (wholly owned by Dr. Zhu) and Dr. Zhu as beneficiaries, and the holding chain runs from the trust to Emerald Forest Investment Limited to Emerald Forest and then to the company's 29,604,176 shares; Liu Letian's platform Sixsense is held as to 99.9% by CyberStone Holdings Limited, which is held by TMF (Cayman) Ltd. as trustee of a trust, with Realsense (wholly owned by Mr. Liu) and Mr. Liu as beneficiaries. The names and settlement dates of the three trusts have not been disclosed. In addition, Ruby, the holding entity of the employee share scheme, is also indirectly controlled by TMF (Cayman) Ltd. as trustee.

Regarding offshore trusts, on July 24, 2026, the Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration jointly issued the Announcement on Matters Concerning Individual Income Tax on Offshore Trusts (Announcement No. 21 of 2026), bringing the entire life cycle of an offshore trust — establishment, existence and termination — into the individual income tax administration system, establishing three look-through points of establishment, existence and termination with a uniform 20% tax rate. The announcement specifies that during the existence of an offshore trust, income generated by an individual resident's offshore trust and by overseas entities held or controlled by that trust, whether actually distributed or not, is taxable to that individual resident, who must file and pay individual income tax on an annual basis. Article 6 of the announcement specifies that where, during the existence of an offshore trust of an individual resident, the individual resident becomes a non-resident individual, the taxable income is the balance after deducting the original value from the market value of the offshore trust's property on the day the individual becomes a non-resident, and individual income tax must be filed and paid. The 90-day supplementary filing window set by the announcement runs from July 24, 2026.

On the operating side, the company recorded revenue of RMB 1.02 billion in the first half of 2026, up 30% year on year; net loss attributable to shareholders was RMB 160 million, against a net loss of RMB 150 million in the same period last year; the gross margin was 21.8%, down 4.1 percentage points year on year. Total lidar shipments during the period reached about 719,200 units, up 169.6% year on year, of which shipments for robotics and other fields were 282,600 units, up 510.4% year on year. For the full year 2025, the company's net loss attributable to shareholders narrowed sharply to RMB 161.6 million from RMB 520.3 million in 2024. Cash and cash equivalents stood at RMB 980.1 million as at the end of June; the interim report was disclosed on September 23.

Deutsche Bank noted in a research report that RoboSense's third-quarter total lidar shipments rose 221% year on year to a record 595,600 units, of which shipments for robotics and other fields rose 309% year on year to 145,200 units, keeping the company on track to meet its full-year 2026 target of about 900,000 lidar units for robotics and other applications.