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Japan may have its busiest year for initial public offerings since before the global financial crisis as social network providers and manufacturers join Japan Airlines Co. in preparing share sales.
As many as 50 Japanese companies will offer shares to the public for the first time in 2012, Toshio Isohashi, head of IPOs at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co., said in an interview in Tokyo on Jan. 4. That would be the most since 2007, the year before Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bankruptcy triggered the deepest global recession in postwar history.
Japan’s IPO market has shrunk over the past decade, with none topping NTT DoCoMo (9437) Inc.’s 2.1 trillion yen ($27 billion) offering in 1998. A share sale by Facebook Inc., the U.S. social networking site that is considering the largest Internet IPO on record, could provide a trigger for offerings by similar companies in Japan this year, Isohashi said.
“Japan’s IPO market is returning to normal at last,” he said. “At least a half-dozen Japanese game application makers and social networking companies will list on stock exchanges,” the banker said, without naming any.
Initial share sales in Japan dried up over the past 10 years as the country grappled with a slumping stock market, falling consumer prices (JNCPIXFF), and a political arena that saw seven prime ministers. The number of IPOs shrank to 36 last year from 172 a decade earlier, data compiled by Bloomberg show, and the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average (NKY) has lost more than 20 percent.
Return From Bankruptcy
Japan Airlines, the carrier that exited bankruptcy last year, is preparing an IPO that may raise as much as 1 trillion yen as early as September, two people familiar with the matter said this week. That would match a 2010 sale by Dai-ichi Life Insurance Co. (8750) as the biggest since mobile operator NTT DoCoMo’s IPO more than 13 years ago.
“Investors’ appetites are gradually increasing,” Isohashi, 47, said. “Some see IPO stocks as relatively cheap.”
KLab Inc. (3656), a Tokyo-based online game maker, was the best performer among the 36 Japanese companies that listed last year, with its share value tripling from the IPO price, according to Bloomberg data.
In the U.S., Facebook and Yelp Inc. are set to lead the biggest year for IPOs by Internet companies since 1999, testing demand after investors lost money on Zynga Inc. and Pandora Media Inc. The industry may raise $11 billion this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That would be the most since $18.5 billion of IPOs in 1999, just before the dot-com bubble burst.
Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley (MS), the venture between Japan’s biggest banking group and New York-based Morgan Stanley, was ranked fifth in managing share sales in the country last year, Bloomberg data show. Nomura Holdings Inc. topped the list for the 10th straight year.
As many as 50 Japanese companies will offer shares to the public for the first time in 2012, Toshio Isohashi, head of IPOs at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co., said in an interview in Tokyo on Jan. 4. That would be the most since 2007, the year before Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bankruptcy triggered the deepest global recession in postwar history.
Japan’s IPO market has shrunk over the past decade, with none topping NTT DoCoMo (9437) Inc.’s 2.1 trillion yen ($27 billion) offering in 1998. A share sale by Facebook Inc., the U.S. social networking site that is considering the largest Internet IPO on record, could provide a trigger for offerings by similar companies in Japan this year, Isohashi said.
“Japan’s IPO market is returning to normal at last,” he said. “At least a half-dozen Japanese game application makers and social networking companies will list on stock exchanges,” the banker said, without naming any.
Initial share sales in Japan dried up over the past 10 years as the country grappled with a slumping stock market, falling consumer prices (JNCPIXFF), and a political arena that saw seven prime ministers. The number of IPOs shrank to 36 last year from 172 a decade earlier, data compiled by Bloomberg show, and the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average (NKY) has lost more than 20 percent.
Return From Bankruptcy
Japan Airlines, the carrier that exited bankruptcy last year, is preparing an IPO that may raise as much as 1 trillion yen as early as September, two people familiar with the matter said this week. That would match a 2010 sale by Dai-ichi Life Insurance Co. (8750) as the biggest since mobile operator NTT DoCoMo’s IPO more than 13 years ago.
“Investors’ appetites are gradually increasing,” Isohashi, 47, said. “Some see IPO stocks as relatively cheap.”
KLab Inc. (3656), a Tokyo-based online game maker, was the best performer among the 36 Japanese companies that listed last year, with its share value tripling from the IPO price, according to Bloomberg data.
In the U.S., Facebook and Yelp Inc. are set to lead the biggest year for IPOs by Internet companies since 1999, testing demand after investors lost money on Zynga Inc. and Pandora Media Inc. The industry may raise $11 billion this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That would be the most since $18.5 billion of IPOs in 1999, just before the dot-com bubble burst.
Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley (MS), the venture between Japan’s biggest banking group and New York-based Morgan Stanley, was ranked fifth in managing share sales in the country last year, Bloomberg data show. Nomura Holdings Inc. topped the list for the 10th straight year.
