Sony financial arm in $3.1B IPO

• Tweet

TOKYO, Sept. 4 (UPI) -- Sony Corp. will list shares of its financial arm on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in an offering valued up to $3.1 billion, the company said Tuesday.

The Sony Financial Holdings Inc. initial public offering, set for Oct. 11, will Japan's biggest initial public offering since Aozora Bank Ltd.'s $3.27 billion offering last November.

Sony Financial, which accounted for nearly 9 percent of Sony's overall revenue in the fiscal year that ended in March, runs Sony Bank and Sony's two insurance companies.

Sony has tentatively set the indicative price for the IPO at $3,570 a share, the multinational electronics company said.

Sony Financial will offer 75,000 new shares.

Sony's board also agreed to sell to the public 725,000 of its 2.10 million Sony Financial shares, and up to 795,000 shares if investor demand activates an option to offer an additional 70,000 shares, the company said.

Assuming those additional shares are sold, Sony will retain slightly more than two-thirds of the newly listed company, it said.

Nomura Securities Co. and J.P. Morgan Securities will be the joint lead underwriters.

For the fiscal year ending in March 2008, Sony Financial forecast net profit of $129 million, revenue of $6.9 billion and earnings of $60.42 a share.