Tokyo Metro priced its shares at 1,200 yen per share in Japan’s largest initial public offering in six years, raising 348.6 billion yen ($2.3 billion), according to a regulatory filing on Tuesday.
Miho Uranaka | Reuters
Analysts say Tokyo Metro’s IPO could boost momentum in the Japanese market and attract more companies to the country as China continues to lose momentum.
Tokyo Metro priced its shares at 1,200 yen per share in Japan’s largest IPO in six years, raising 348.6 billion yen ($2.3 billion), according to the company’s announcement. Supervision filing Tuesday.
Reuters had reportTwo people familiar with the matter were quoted as saying that the IPO was oversubscribed by more than 15 times. The shares are expected to be listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on October 23.
“Everyone knows it, and it’s priced relatively cheap,” LightStream Research founder Mio Kato said on CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Tuesday. “I think the Tokyo government and the Ministry of Finance obviously don’t want the IPO to fail. “
“This is a pretty big IPO this year, and everyone, you know, the public as a whole, is going to be paying attention to that as the election approaches,” Kato added. “We think they offer very, very good value.”
a recent report publish Data from financial market platform Dealogic show that equity capital market issuance in the Asia-Pacific region was only US$168 billion in September, down 15% from the first nine months of 2023 and 27% from the same period in 2022.
The decline in overall issuance in the Asia-Pacific region coincides with China’s economic slowdown, the report said. However, India and Japan made up for the lack of Chinese releases.
Kato said he believes Japan’s positive trends will continue, suggesting the country will soon rebound from years of sluggish IPO activity.
“I’ve seen some news about Nasdaq actually trying to attract more Japanese IPOs. You know, the Chinese IPO market has been a little quiet lately,” he said.
modern india This week, the company also started taking orders for a $3.3 billion IPO in Mumbai, which would become the country’s largest listing.
Ringo Choi, EY Asia Pacific IPO leader, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Tuesday that both Hyundai India and Tokyo Metro are in “very hot positions” and have “high liquidity.”
Choi predicts that these two IPOs will become benchmarks for their respective markets.
Asked if he thought the launch of Tokyo Metro and Hyundai India would open the floodgates for more activity, he said: “I do.”
“I do think that after these two IPOs, if the IPO returns are pretty good, it will attract more companies to consider these two markets as IPO destinations,” Choi said.
—CNBC’s Dylan Butts contributed to this report.
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