Tokyo Metro Shares Untraded on Market Debut

Reuters

10:16 JST, October 23, 2024

TOKYO (Reuters) – Tokyo Metro saw its stock untraded on its Tokyo market debut on Wednesday with a glut of buy orders in early trade.

Tokyo Metro, one of the capital’s two major subway operators, raised $2.3 billion after pricing its initial public offering at the top of an indicative range at 1,200 yen apiece.

The IPO was more than 15 times oversubscribed, Reuters has reported, with investors drawn to a household name with an attractive dividend yield.

“The listing of a large company familiar to individual investors has a large merit in broadening the investor base,” Toshio Morita, CEO of the Japan Securities Dealers Association and former president of Nomura Securities, said last week.

Tokyo Metro forecasts a dividend of 40 yen per share for the financial year ending March 2025 and has appealed to investors with perks such as toppings at the noodle eateries it operates.

The IPO is the largest in Japan since SoftBank Group listed its telecoms unit in late 2018.

Rigaku Holdings, a maker of X-ray testing tools, raised $863 million in its IPO after pricing shares at the top of the range and will debut on Friday.

There have been $4.9 billion worth of IPOs year to date in Japan, LSEG data shows, the largest amount in six years.