Kioxia Holdings Corp.’s mammoth initial public offering contains one sign that investor demand for its shares may lack strength: unlike 97% of IPOs by other Japanese firms this year, the deal didn’t price at the upper end of the firm’s proposed range or higher.
The Bain Capital-backed memory-chip manufacturer priced its stock at ¥1,455 ($9.6), at the middle of the price range it proposed before the IPO. By contrast, out of 72 IPOs in Japan this year that gave a price range, just one ended up debuting below the upper limit, Japan Exchange Group data show.
Kioxia’s offering wasn’t all bad news: the IPO size was ¥120 billion including an overallotment option. That was Japan’s third-biggest deal this year, only surpassed by the leader, Tokyo Metro, and scientific-equipment maker Rigaku Holdings, according to Bloomberg-compiled data.
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