Sony Financial Holdings Inc. gained 3.8 percent Thursday on its first day of trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange after raising ¥320 billion in Japan's largest initial public offering this year.
The stock closed at ¥415,000 after rising to as high as ¥424,000 earlier in the day. The Tokyo-based insurance unit is Sony Corp.'s biggest profit contributor after consumer electronics.
The sale, 10 times larger than any previous IPO this year, tested the appetite for investment in the only major stock market that has lost value in 2007. Gains in the stock increased Sony Financial's market value to ¥903 billion, half the size of rival T&D Holdings Inc., Japan's only other publicly traded life insurer.