SoftBank Seeks $21 Billion in Japan's Biggest IPO

Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive officer of Softbank, Masayoshi Son, to fund his plans of investing in tech startups is looking at raising capital by making the most of their golden goose – domestic telecoms.

SoftBank Corp can look forward to getting its domestic telecoms unit listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on December 19th, 2018 based on the filing with the Ministry of Finance.

The final IPO price, however, cannot be determined before December 10th, 2018.

On Monday, the unit of the Japanese technology giant received approval to list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in an initial public offering (IPO) worth 2.4 trillion yen ($21.04 billion) and thus becomes one of the biggest IPOs ever.

The IPO is of importance since it will mark the transformation of SoftBank from a mobile network service provider (albeit one that successfully challenged and disrupted Japan’s established duopoly) into a technology investor of global reckoning.

It would be interesting to study how the funds raised are deployed into new startup investments and which new names would be added to the widely varied list that includes gaming startups, ride-hailing firms (like Uber), and Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba Group.

There are reportedly 1.6 billion SoftBank Corp shares at the speculative price of 1,500 yen each while the parent company will retain a 66.5 per cent stake in the newly listed entity. The market value predicted is of 7.18 trillion yen upon listing.

Moreover, if the demand id strong, up to 160 million shares worth 240.6 billion yen will be offered in an over-allotment, bringing the total up to the $25 billion IPO by Alibaba in 2014.