Lunar startup ispace's shares untraded in Tokyo debut amid glut of buy orders (updated)

Ispace

12/04/2023 02:16

(Updates bid price in 3rd paragraph, adds background details)
    By Rocky Swift
       TOKYO, April 12 (Reuters) - Shares of lunar
transportation start-up ispace Inc  9348.T  went untraded in
their market debut in Tokyo early on Wednesday, as bids
overwhelmed offers. 
    The company, which has a probe already en route for the
moon, raised 6.7 billion yen ($50 million) in an initial public
offering (IPO) last month.
    Shares of ispace were last bid at 319 yen on the Tokyo
exchange's growth market, 26% above their IPO price of 254 yen.
The stock has an upper price limit of 585 yen, according to the
exchange.
    The start-up, which has a contract with NASA to ferry
payloads to the moon from 2025 and is targeting building a
permanently staffed lunar colony by 2040, aims to be the first
commercial company to land a probe on the moon.
    In December its 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 it expects the
lander to touch down on the moon's surface on April 26 at the
earliest.
    In February ispace said its lunar lander reached its
farthest distance from Earth and, despite minor technical
hitches during the moonshot, was on track for a lunar landing
attempt later this month.
    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.
    The company had intended to raise around 6 billion yen in
the offering, but later boosted the size of the share sale. The
IPO price of 254 yen was the top of its indicated range of
234-254 yen.
    It sold 26.5 million shares in the increased IPO. There was
a greenshoe option of up to 1.2 million shares. 
    
    

 (Reporting by Rocky Swift and David Dolan; Editing by Kenneth
Maxwell)
 ((rocky.swift@thomsonreuters.com))