Seibu Holdings Inc., operator of Japan's biggest hotel chain, priced a ¥44.5 billion initial public offering at the bottom of its planned range after two IPOs flopped last month.
The price was set at ¥1,600 a share, according to a regulatory filing Monday. The company, which isn't selling shares it owns, had previously said it would price the shares from ¥1,600 to ¥1,800 each. The deal values the company at about ¥547.4 billion.
The company, which was delisted in 2004 over its prolonged falsification of shareholder records, is returning to public markets after Takashi Goto, president of the hotel and rail operator, won a fight with Cerberus last year over strategy and board representation.
Seibu, which had disagreements with its biggest shareholder Cerberus Capital Management LP, cut the price 30 percent from its indicative price announced last month. Goto has pushed hard to proceed with the IPO, while Cerberus has said it wanted to wait for a higher price and ultimately decided not to offer any shares in the sale.
"It's a case of bad timing," said Minoru Matsuno, president of Value Search Asset Management Co. in Tokyo. "The market isn't good for IPOs currently."
The company is selling 27.826 million shares, or about 8 percent of the outstanding shares from its other main shareholders. A total of 18.1 million shares will be sold in Japan, with 9.7 million on offer overseas, according to the company.