By Kosaku Narioka
Socionext shares were indicated sharply lower Thursday morning following news that the Japanese chip designer plans to offer 12.6 million shares held by its biggest shareholders to investors abroad.
The shares were recently indicated 23% lower at the lower end of the day’s trading range at 16,950 yen as sell orders overwhelmed buy orders. No shares have changed hands so far.
Socionext said after the market closed Wednesday that both government-owned Development Bank of Japan and Fujitsu Ltd. planned to divest their 15% stakes and that Panasonic Holdings Corp. intended to unload its 7.5% stake.
The semiconductor design company said that by offering shares to institutional investors overseas it could broaden its investor base, improve liquidity and avoid the negative impact on its share price that could have been caused by stake sales in the market.
The company said the offering price would be decided sometime between July 11 and July 13.
Socionext, which was established in March 2015 as a result of the merger between Fujitsu’s and Panasonic’s system-on-chip businesses, listed itself on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in October. Backed by strong earnings, the shares have surged since the initial-public-offering price at Y3,650.
For the fiscal year ended March, the company’s revenue increased 65% to Y192.77 billion ($1.33 billion) and net profit more than doubled to Y19.76 billion. In April, the company projected revenue would rise a further 3.8% and net profit would fall 11% this fiscal year.
Write to Kosaku Narioka at [email protected]
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