Nomura Research Institute Ltd., the economic research and consulting arm of Nomura Securities Co., debuted Monday on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange with an opening price of 14,850 yen, against its initial public offering price of 11,000 yen per share.

The debut price gives Nomura Research a market value of 668 billion yen, the highest for any issue listed this year, exceeding the 625 billion yen registered by McDonald's Co. (Japan) when it listed on the Jasdaq over-the-counter market in July.

Nomura Research issued 2 million new shares, while selling 11.6 million of its outstanding shares -- 8 million domestically and 3.6 million overseas.

The proceeds from the new share offerings will be used for systems investment and debt repayment.

At the outset of Monday's TSE trading, Nomura Research received significantly large net buy orders, and only bid prices were quoted before the stock fetched the initial price shortly after 10 a.m.

The stock later faced profit-taking, ending the day at 14,050 yen.

"Recently, funds are seen to flow into newly listed issues as investors are shunning shares that are likely to meet selling pressure from the unwinding of cross-held shares or those that are hit by fears of credit risks," said Yuji Ono, an analyst at Nikko Cordial Securities Inc.

NRI, based in Tokyo, was set up in 1965 as a think tank for Nomura Securities group. In 1988, it merged with a Nomura computer affiliate, making computer system development one of the pillars of its operations.

NRI built a point-of-sales system for convenience store chain Seven-Eleven Japan Co.

Development and management of these systems and software sales account for more than 80 percent of its overall revenues.

NRI initially planned to go public on Oct. 2, but postponed its listing due to the stock market turmoil following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

The listing is expected to put the shares of NRI's rivals, including NTT Data Corp. and Hitachi Software Engineering Co., under pressure.