Shares of Japanese moon lander-maker Ispace went untraded on a glut of buy orders on their market debut as investors bet on the startup and the country’s space-development efforts.
Shares were quoted at ¥585, or more than twice the offering price of ¥254 at market close on Wednesday, according to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The initial public offering had valued the Tokyo-based company at about ¥20 billion ($150 million), according to Bloomberg calculations.
The listing comes ahead of the highly-anticipated arrival of the company’s first lunar lander, which was launched via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in December carrying two rovers and other payloads. The Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander, which lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida following multiple delays, is scheduled to touch down as early as this month.