Xinhua Finance Ltd. fetched an initial quote of 163,000 yen in its debut on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Mothers market Thursday.

The initial quote for the stock was down from its initial public offering price of 175,000 yen. The closing price for Thursday was 163,000 yen.

The financial information and services company was the first foreign company to go public on the Mothers -- a market for startup companies.

Xinhua Finance, headquartered in Hong Kong, provides financial news and credit-rating services to Chinese and other companies. China's state-run Xinhua News Agency holds a stake in Xinhua Finance, which was founded in 1999.

A total of about 3.5 billion yen was raised through 20,000 shares of the IPO and Xinhua Finance said it plans to use the money for such purposes as capital investment and running costs.

For calendar 2004, Xinhua Finance said it projects a consolidated net loss of 1.12 billion yen and a pretax loss of 904.34 million yen on revenues of 6.07 billion yen.

"Based on the company's earnings outlook, investors may become cautious about actively snapping up the stock," said Tsuyoshi Segawa, equity strategist at Shinko Securities Co.

Xinhua Finance has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Seoul, Taipei, Tokyo, Singapore and New York.