Shares of Japan Post jumped almost 17 percent in the first day of trading after the company and its banking and insurance units raised a combined 1.44 trillion yen ($11.9 billion) in the world’s biggest initial public offering of stock this year.
Advertisement
But the gains were pared when the People’s Bank of China later updated the website posting of Zhou Xiaochuan’s comments, clarifying that it was based on an internal speech he delivered in May. Japan Post Bank shares were at 1,671 yen, up 15 per cent from an IPO price of 1,450 yen and Japan Post Insurance was at 3,430 yen, 55 per cent above its IPO price of 2,200 yen. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 closed down 0.3 and 0.4 percent respectively, while the Nasdaq Composite finished flat.
“U.S. and European earnings estimates for 2015 have been falling over the year to date, whereas for Japan they’ve been holding up well, if not increasing”.
Japan Post Bank will apply before the end of this year for government authorization to put its funds into a wider range of investment vehicles, informed sources said.
Shares in the vast company – along with its banking and insurance units – were listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange following an US$11.5 billion share sale, in the largest offering globally since Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding’s record US$25 billion offering a year ago.
The shares will not be part of the first-section Topix until year-end, but a few investors Wednesday apparently wanted to grab them ahead of the index buyers. The other 2 were its subsidiaries – Japan Post Bank and Japan Post Insurance.
South Korea’s Kospi was up 0.2%.
The strong stock-market reception for Japan Post’s debut was underpinned by interest from retail investors who liked the relatively high dividend yield of the shares and were familiar with the Japan Post name.
The Korean won, Thai baht, Aussie dollar and Taiwanese dollar also enjoyed a boost against the United States unit.
Takata Corp shares plunged 8 per cent after the top USA auto safety regulator fined the air-bag supplier $70 million and ordered it to stop making inflators that use ammonium nitrate.
For Abe, converting a nation of low-risk bank savers into higher-risk stockholders could go a long way toward increasing the popularity of his reforms, which have been criticized for inflating prices and lifting corporate profits but not padding workers’ pay.
On Tuesday, President Xi Jinping suggested Beijing could tolerate growth as low as 6.5%, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Overnight, USA stocks extended their gains, boosted by energy-company shares.
Brent crude oil was down 0.3% at $50.39 a barrel in early Asia trade.
Advertisement
Grace Zhu, Yifan Xie, Gregor Stuart Hunter, Atsuko Fukase and Dominique Fong contributed to this article.
