Corrected: UPDATE 3-Lunar start-up ispace blasts off in Tokyo market debut

Ispace

13/04/2023 04:15

(In paragraph 12, removes reference to NASA contract and adds
that ispace is working with Draper to help bring NASA payloads
to the moon. Repeats advisory to note that this error occurred
in an earlier update of this story series.)
    By Rocky Swift and Daniel Leussink
       TOKYO, April 12 (Reuters) - Lunar transportation
start-up ispace Inc  9348.T  had a blistering market debut in
Tokyo on Wednesday as investors scrambled to buy shares in the
company that aims to land the first commercial probe on the
moon.
    Such was the glut of buy orders and demand to hold the
shares that they went untraded all day.
    They were being quoted at their daily upper price limit of
585 yen at the end of the session on the Tokyo stock exchange's
growth market, more than double the initial public offer price
of 254 yen. 
    When a stock is untraded due to a glut of buy orders, it is
given a "forced" closing price by the exchange that reflects the
balance of buy and sell orders.
    Analysts said investors bid for the shares of ispace, which
raised 6.7 billion yen ($50 million) in its IPO, because its
lunar development and transportation business fits in with
Japan's national policy of defence and space development.
    Japan is boosting spending in those areas, which in turn
makes investors bullish, said Tastunori Kawai, chief strategist
at AU Kabucom Securities. 
    "IPOs that fit with national policy themes tend to be
successful, as is the case with biotech ventures," he said.
    In December, the start-up's Hakuto-R Mission 1 lunar lander
was launched aboard a SpaceX rocket that took off from Cape
Canaveral, Florida, carrying two robotic rovers.
    ispace said in a statement on Wednesday that it expected the
lander to touch down on the moon's surface at 1640 GMT on April
25, at the earliest. The vehicle is currently orbiting the moon
at an altitude of 100 kms (62.14 miles).
    If successful, it will mark the first ever lunar landing by
a private company. Only the governments of the United States,
Russia and China have nailed such a feat, with landing attempts
by India and a private Israeli company ending in failure in
recent years.
    
    LUNAR COLONY
    ispace is working with spacecraft software firm Draper to
help bring NASA payloads to the moon from 2025 and is targeting
building a permanently staffed lunar colony by 2040.
    "We've gotten a lot of attention from many people including
shareholders and investors and renewed our desire to steadily
expand our business in the future," Takeshi Hakamada, ispace's
founder and chief executive, told reporters.
    The company had intended to raise around 6 billion yen in
its IPO, but later boosted the size of the share sale.
    It sold 26.5 million shares in the increased IPO. There was
a greenshoe option of up to 1.2 million shares. With 80.4
million shares outstanding, the company reached a market
capitalisation of about 47 billion yen after the shares rose by
their daily limit.
    $1 = 133.6900 yen)

 (Reporting by Rocky Swift, Daniel Leussink, Mariko Katsumura
and David Dolan; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell, Jamie Freed and
Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
 ((rocky.swift@thomsonreuters.com))