  The rare-earth monopnictide family is attracting an intense current interest
driven by its unusual extreme magnetoresistance (XMR) property and the
potential presence of topologically non-trivial surface states. The
experimental observation of non-trivial surface states in this family of
materials are not ubiquitous. Here, using high-resolution angle-resolved
photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), magnetotransport, and parallel
first-principles modeling, we examine the nature of electronic states in HoSb.
Although we find the presence of bulk band gaps at the G and X-symmetry points
of the Brillouin zone (BZ), we do not find these gaps to exhibit band inversion
so that HoSb does not host a Dirac semimetal state. Our magnetotransport
measurements indicate that HoSb can be characterized as a correlated
nearly-complete electron-hole-compensated semimetal. Our analysis reveals that
the nearly perfect electron-hole compensation could drive the appearance of
non-saturating XMR effect in HoSb.
