Tokyo Stocks Meander, Minnano Wedding IPO Soars

Hiruki Nakamura
25 Mar, 2014
New York City

Stocks in Tokyo lacked direction and investors focused on geopolitical tensions. Minnano Wedding soared on the first day of trading and raised $47 million. Taisei and Sekisui House declined as companies work together to fix construction defects at a 30 story building in Shirokane.

[R]4:30 PM Tokyo – Stocks in Tokyo lacked direction and investors focused on geopolitical tensions. Minnano Wedding soared on the first day of trading and raised $47 million. Taisei and Sekisui House declined as companies work together to fix construction defects at a 30 story building in Shirokane.[/R]

Investors in Tokyo looked to overseas geopolitical developments in the absence of local economic news.

Investors warmed up to the initial public offering of Minnano Wedding and nearly 80 companies are expected to company in Japan this year.

Stocks lacked direction ahead of planned increase in sales tax and tensions rose between Japan and Western nations after Group of Eight nations expelled Russia.

Industrialized seven nations will not hold a planned meeting in Sochi and instead hold their own meeting in Brussels in June.

An industry group said on a same-store basis, sales at supermarkets in February jumped 1.5% from a year earlier, up for the first time in three months.

Total sales at 9,174 outlets operate by 59 companies increased to 965.5 billion yen.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 52.11 or 0.4% to 14,423.19 and the Topix index rose 0.66 to 1,163.70.

The yen closed at 102.25 against the U.S. dollar.

Stocks in Review

Toyota Motor Corp gained 43 yen to 5,560 yen. Honda Motor Co rose 24 yen to 3,520 yen. Nissan Motor Co Ltd added 0.9% to 890 yen.

Sony jumped 39 yen or 2.2% to 1,837 yen.

Softbank Corp declined 266 yen or 3.2% to 8,088 yen after the subsidiary SoftBank Telecom Corporation decided its dividend on March 25 would be for total amount of 44 billion yen.

Fast Retailing Co dropped 415 yen to 35,925 yen.

Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp rose 0.4% to 268 yen after the Japan-based steel producer agreed to acquire Germany-based environmental engineering company Fisia Babcock Environment GmbH for about 19 billion yen.

Nomura Real Estate Office Fund, Inc closed unchanged at 575,000 yen after the Japan-based real estate investment trust agreed to buy Kojimachi Millennium Garden in Tokyo for about 26,500 million yen.

Mandom Corporation gained 0.8% to 3,565 yen after the Nikkei newspaper said the cosmetics maker expected to post record operating profit for the current fiscal year ending in March.

Minnano Wedding Co soared 15% on its first day of trading. The marriage information site priced its public offering at 2,800 yen and opened at 3,560 yen. The company raised 4.76 billion yen or $47 million.

Nomura led the offering.