An initial public offering by Rakuten Bank is set to fetch the company and its parent as much as ¥116.6 billion ($881 million), putting it on track to be Japan’s biggest listing in more than four years.
The banking unit of Rakuten Group set an indicative band of ¥1,630 to ¥1,960 per share for its Tokyo IPO on Wednesday. The stock will list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on April 21, according to a statement.
Almost 60 million shares are being offered in the IPO, with 16% of them being sold by the lender and 84% by holder Rakuten Group. The offering can be upsized by an over-allotment option of about 4.4 million shares.
It is set to be the largest IPO in Japan since December 2018, when SoftBank listed following a jumbo $21 billion IPO. Rakuten’s deal is set to be bigger than any since then even if shares are priced at the bottom of the marketed range and the over-allotment is not exercised, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The planned listing is part of a push by the group to expand in financial services. Stiff competition from Amazon.com has capped its core e-commerce revenues, while aggressive promotions for its mobile unit are saddling the company with losses.
Rakuten Group shares rose as much as 8.1% on Wednesday, the most since October, before ending 5.8% higher. Share prices have more than halved since a 2021 peak.
Proceeds from the IPO could potentially plug Rakuten Group’s "liquidity shortfall at its non-financial unit,” said Sharon Chen, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
April 13 is the expected pricing date. Daiwa Securities Group, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group and Mizuho Financial Group are joint global coordinators on the deal.
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