The third largest manufacturer of flash memory in the world finally went public – shares immediately rose by 7.6%

The epic with the release of shares of the Japanese company Kioxia on the Tokyo Stock Exchange successfully ended today, since they started the first day of trading below the placement level, but ended with an increase of 7.6% and exceeded it. Kioxia’s capitalization is therefore estimated at $5.34 billion at this stage.

Image source: Kioxia

This is still about two and a half times lower than the amount in Japanese yen that a consortium of investors led by Bain Capital paid for the assets of Toshiba Memory Corporation in 2018. On their basis, Kioxia was subsequently formed, and the former parent corporation Toshiba gradually increased its share in its capital to approximately 40%, but Bain Capital remains the largest shareholder of Kioxia even after the IPO, although its share decreased from 56.2 to 50.7 %. Bain’s decision to sell only a small portion of its Kioxia shares during the initial public offering is explained by the low value of these assets. Initially, Bain expected Kioxia’s share price to be twice as high.

Trading in Tokyo opened at 1,440 yen per Kioxia share, while the midpoint of the placement range was at 1,455 yen per share. Trading ended at 1,549 yen per share, ensuring an increase of 7.6% in the first trading session. Kioxia managed to raise about $782 million as a result of the placement. There was no activity of sellers at the auction, since holders of Kioxia shares probably expect to sell them later at a higher price. In total, since the beginning of this year, about $6 billion has been raised in Japan through IPOs of various companies. In terms of revenue, this is the best result since 2021, but in terms of the number of transactions it is the worst in ten years.

Kioxia is the world’s third-largest memory chip maker, behind only South Korea’s Samsung and SK Group.