Introduction: Institutional book floating profits have exceeded 350%. Whether to sell on the day of the lock-up expiration is almost a choice without suspense.
Today, Metax will face a lock-up expiration of restricted shares that is not particularly massive.
According to the announcement disclosed by the company on September 10, 13.966 million restricted shares from the offline placement of the initial public offering (IPO) will be listed and traded, accounting for 3.4906% of the company's total share capital. Upon completion of the lock-up expiration, the number of unrestricted tradable shares of Metax will increase from 18.5286 million to 32.4946 million.
If looking only at the total share capital, this seems to be just an ordinary IPO restricted share lock-up expiration.
However, if these shares are put back into the tradable float of Metax, the significance is completely different.
For Metax, it means a one-time increase of approximately 75.4% in tradable shares.
This is the real focal point of this lock-up expiration.
Eve of the Lock-up Expiration
To understand this lock-up expiration, one must first look at a set of easily overlooked data.
As of September 16, the total share capital of Metax was 400 million shares, with a total market capitalization of CNY 191.072 billion. However, the shares that can truly be freely traded in the secondary market amount to only 18.5286 million, corresponding to a tradable market capitalization of CNY 8.849 billion.
In other words, out of the 400 million total shares, currently less than 18.53 million shares can be freely traded, with the tradable float accounting for only about 4.6%.
This means that Metax's market capitalization of over CNY 190 billion is actually built on a very limited tradable float.
What the market can truly trade and price is not the full 400 million shares, but these 18.53 million shares.
On December 17 last year, Metax was listed on the SSE STAR Market at an issue price of CNY 104.66. On the first day of listing, the company's stock price once surged to CNY 829.9, an increase of 693% from the issue price, and the market capitalization once reached CNY 332 billion.
By July 13 this year, the stock price hit an intraday high of CNY 1,033, and the market capitalization once exceeded CNY 400 billion, thus entering the ranks of "thousand-yuan stocks" in the A-share market.
Rising from CNY 104.66 to CNY 1,033, the increase is nearly 10 times.
However, the high-level market performance did not last long.
On September 10, the stock price of Metax fell below CNY 500 during intraday trading, a pullback of over 50% from the previous high. As of the close on September 16, the stock price was reported at CNY 477.56.
Over the past year, the stock price of Metax has experienced an extremely intense round of rise and pullback. Behind this, a factor that cannot be ignored is that the tradable float has long been at an extremely low level.
The fewer the tradable shares, the easier it is for marginal changes in market supply and demand to amplify price fluctuations; and after the stock price continues to rise, the scarce tradable float will further amplify the market's acceptance of high valuations.
Now, as 13.966 million shares enter the market, the tradable float of Metax will increase by 75% compared to before the lock-up expiration. In other words, the shares that can be freely traded in the market will increase by nearly three-quarters overnight.
This is the real focal point of this lock-up expiration.
More importantly, the issue cost of these shares is only CNY 104.66, while the closing price on September 16 was already CNY 477.56. The book floating profit corresponding to the unlocked shares has exceeded 350%.
For institutional investors holding these shares, the lock-up expiration means that a portion of the book profits that were originally untradable has gained the possibility of realization for the first time.
Therefore, whether to sell on the day of the lock-up expiration is almost a choice without suspense.
Valuation Paradox
Over the past period, the market's pricing of Metax was not calculated according to the valuation method of a traditional chip company.
In 2025, Metax achieved an operating revenue of CNY 1.644 billion for the whole year, a year-on-year increase of over 120%, but the net loss for the whole year still reached CNY 789 million.
By the first half of 2026, the company achieved an operating revenue of CNY 1.324 billion, a year-on-year increase of 44.67%; the net profit attributable to the parent company was CNY 612 million, compared to a loss of CNY 186 million in the same period last year.
On the surface, this is a transition from loss to profit.
However, if looking further at the net profit excluding non-recurring gains and losses, it will be found that the situation is not that simple.
In the first half of 2026, the net profit attributable to the parent company of Metax excluding non-recurring gains and losses was CNY -49 million. That is to say, there is a difference of over CNY 660 million between the net profit attributable to the parent company of CNY 612 million and the net profit excluding non-recurring gains and losses of CNY -49 million.
The indicator that truly represents the sustainable profitability of the main business is still around the break-even point.
Of course, there is also a positive change worth noting: in the second quarter of 2026, the company's net profit attributable to the parent company excluding non-recurring gains and losses reached CNY 54 million, achieving a turnaround on a quarter-on-quarter basis for the first time.
This means that signs of improvement are emerging in the profitability of the main business.
The question is whether the net profit excluding non-recurring gains and losses of CNY 54 million in one quarter can support a market capitalization of around CNY 190 billion?
Calculated based on the closing price on September 16, the price-to-book ratio of Metax is about 13.78 times, and the dynamic price-to-earnings ratio is about 155.99 times.
It is not difficult to understand why the market is willing to give such a high valuation.
What Metax tells is a long-term story of domestic substitution of GPUs, the growth of AI computing power demand, and the gradual improvement of the domestic software and hardware ecosystem.
Chen Weiliang, the founder and chairman of the company, graduated from Tsinghua University with a major in microelectronics-related fields and formerly served as the global head of GPU SoC design at AMD. In the early stage of the company's establishment, it started from two offices in Zhangjiang. Today, it has formed four major product series: Xiyun, Xisi, Xicai, and Xisuo. The flagship product MXC600 has also achieved the implementation of a fully domestic supply chain, with a cumulative shipment of over 55,000 GPUs.
All these constitute the "fundamentals" in the valuation system of Metax.
But what the capital market really needs to answer is another question: how high a valuation can the technology story support?
A company that has not yet formed sustainable profitability on a net profit excluding non-recurring gains and losses basis currently corresponds to a dynamic price-to-earnings ratio of 155.99 times. This means that what the market is buying is no longer just today's profits, but also the growth expectations for many years to come.
And for such high-expectation assets, what needs to be faced most is precisely whether the price can maintain the original scarcity premium after the market begins to have more tradable shares.
The Unlocking of CNY13.96 Million Shares Is Just the Beginning
From a time dimension perspective, the CNY13.966 million shares are only the first step for the restricted shares of Metax to gradually enter the market.
Public information shows that the lock-up period for original shareholders is 12 to 36 months, the follow-up investment shares of the sponsor are locked for 24 months, the shares held by senior management and core employees are locked for 12 months, and the offline placement shares are mainly locked for 6 to 9 months.
In other words, this lock-up expiration is only for a portion of the shares that matured the earliest.
Shareholders with truly larger volumes are still within the lock-up period.
Chen Weiliang, the actual controller of the company, and his concert parties Shanghai Jiaomai and Shanghai Xiji hold a total of 20.63% of the shares, with a lock-up period of 36 months, which will not be gradually unlocked until the end of 2028.
In addition, Ge Weidong and Hundun Investment hold a total of 6.73% of the shares, and these shares are also temporarily unable to circulate freely.
Therefore, from the perspective of the entire equity structure, this potential increase in tradable market capitalization is just the beginning. After this, more tradable shares will enter the market at different time nodes.
Looking at this matter in a longer time cycle, Metax is indeed one of the important enterprises in the domestic GPU field. Whether it is chip architecture, instruction set, or software stack, the company is promoting independent research and development, and has also formed a certain foundation in products and commercialization.
Therefore, the question is not whether the market should give a higher valuation to domestic GPUs, but how much premium the market is still willing to pay for this company after the "scarcity" gradually disappears?
Previously, the proportion of tradable shares to the total share capital of Metax was less than 5%, which made the tradable shares that could be freely traded in the secondary market very limited.
And after today's lock-up expiration, this proportion will significantly increase.
When the tradable float is no longer as scarce as in the past, the pricing of the stock price will gradually shift from the "trading price under limited shares" to a re-evaluation of the company's fundamentals, profitability, and future cash flows.
This is also the true significance of this lock-up expiration.
It does not necessarily mean that the long-term logic of Metax has changed, nor can it be simply equated to how much selling pressure the market will definitely experience.
But it does push a problem previously hidden behind the stock price to the forefront: after the market has more stocks to trade, what exactly can still support the market capitalization of CNY 190 billion?
The answer ultimately has to return to performance.
For a high-growth, high-valuation technology company, scarcity can amplify prices, themes can elevate expectations, and market sentiment can also drive valuations to move up continuously.
But what can truly support the valuation in the long term is still continuously growing revenue, realizable profits, and ultimately the cash flow that can land in the accounts.
The previous round of the "thousand-yuan stock" market performance has already completed an extreme market pricing.
Now, as more shares begin to enter circulation, what Metax faces may be another round of more direct testing—not how large the market is willing to imagine it to be, but what kind of price the market is ultimately willing to pay for its future after the tradable shares gradually increase.