SoftBank mobile subsidiary has bitter debut on Tokyo market
TOKYO — SoftBank Group Corp.’s Japanese mobile subsidiary suffered a bitter debut Wednesday on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, slumping 15 per cent, hurt by a recent service outage and concerns about the use of parts from Chinese telecom giant Huawei.
Shares fetched an opening price of 1,463 yen ($13) and slid further to end their first day at 1,282 yen ($11), down 15 per cent from the IPO price of 1,500 yen announced earlier this month.
Company president Ken Miyauchi and four other executives each rang a bell with a wooden hammer at a festive ceremony celebrating the IPO, which sought to raise more than 2 trillion yen ($18 billion).
SoftBank was listing more than 1.7 billion shares, or about one third held by its parent company. Based on the opening price, the company raised 2.6 trillion yen ($23 billion), the record amount for an IPO on the Tokyo burse, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported.