Japanese company Line has set the price of its IPO at 3,330 yen per share, meaning it could raise as much as $1.3bn when it goes public. The Japanese messaging app firm will have a dual-listing. While it will debut on the NYSE on 14 July, it will list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange the following day.
The company which is a subsidiary of South Korean internet search giant Naver Corp, will offer 22 million shares on the NYSE and a separate 13 million new shares on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
This lies at the top end of an amended pricing range, as the company bumped up its original suggestion of 2,700-3,200 yen to 2,900-3,300 yen in a filing with the Japanese finance ministry last week. The setting of the higher price and the amendment to its original range was a response to demand, with many suggesting that the IPO could be one of the biggest tech listings this year.
The mobile messaging app has 218 million monthly active users and is hugely popular in its native Japan, as well as many countries in Southeast Asia.
The global race to become the de facto messaging app is becoming harder, with Facebook ramping up the features in its messaging app, as well as China’s WeChat gaining notoriety for its success at creating its own ecosystem.
Line, which has been working on its IPO for more than two years, plans to use the funds raised to better compete with messengers such as the Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Tencent-owned WeChat.
James Gellert, CEO of American analytics group Rapid Ratings, was quoted by the Financial Times as saying:
“Line is so much smaller than WhatsApp, WeChat and Facebook Messenger, and it is going to face long-term the same kind of public scrutiny that Twitter has in comparison to Facebook,”
