The offering of 22 million American Depository Shares (ADSs) at US$32.84 (RM129.70) each topped the upper end of the expected price range of US$28.50 (RM112.56) to US$32.50 (RM128.35), raising about US$723mil (RM2.8bil). About two-thirds of the offering was sold in the U.S., where the stock was priced at $32.84 apiece before climbing 27% at its NY debut.
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Line, owned by South Korea’s Naver, also debuted in NY overnight, soaring about 27 per cent by the close.
“Considering that Line is little known in the United States, the IPO seems to be a success”, said a fund manager at a Japanese asset management firm. The company sold 35 million shares and also exercised a greenshoe option to sell an additional 5.25 million.
“We’re providing the same kind of services as Facebook and Google, the internet giants of the world”, Chief Executive Takeshi Idezawa said at a Friday news conference.
Based on the initial pricing, Line’s market capitalization is calculated at 1.03 trillion yen ($9.69 billion), comparable with that of JX Holdings.
Line, the most popular messaging app in Japan and Thailand, raised more than $1.1bn in its dual listing.
But Line remains challenged to boost its popularity beyond East and Southeast Asia, and some Spanish language markets, in a field crowded with innovative mobile messaging services such as Facebook Messenger, WeChat, WhatsApp, Skype and Snapchat.
“The IPO gives use the resources to expand our business”.
TOKYO, July 15 Japan’s Nikkei share average rose to a five-week high on Friday and was on track for a fifth day of gains, lifted by a continuing record run on Wall Street and a sagging yen.
Investors will be keen to look past the first few days of trading.
Still, while the company has 218 million monthly active users and its revenues increased 28 percent previous year, it lags far behind market leader WhatsApp, which has 1 billion MAUs.
Boasting 218 million monthly active users, Line offers free messaging and voice call services. It’s growing in the Middle East but isn’t catching on in the USA or Europe amid competition from Snapchat, Facebook messenger and other social media. “A lot of the buying is coming from retail investors”. The company pulled the plug on the service in March. But the company chalked up a net loss of 7.6 billion yen in the period, according to its IPO filing.
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According to its consolidated earnings report, which is calculated in accordance with worldwide accounting standards, Line logged sales revenue of 33.4 billion yen in the first quarter, up 19% from a year earlier.
