Suntory Beverage makes biggest IPO in Asia this year

The soft drink unit of the Suntory group, Suntory Beverage & Food Ltd., on Wednesday debuted on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Asia's largest initial public offering ( IPO) this year, according to local media. After briefly rising as high as 3,195 yen (about 31.7 U.S. dollars), the stock ended at 3,145 yen (around 31.4 U.S. dollars), compared with the company's offering price of 3,100 yen (about 30. 8 U.S. dollars) per share, reported Japan's Kyodo News. The report said that the IPO will enable the company to raise around 390 billion yen (3.91 billion U.S. dollars), which it is planning to use to finance mergers and acquisitions overseas. Saying at a press conference, President Nobuhiro Torii said that he expects the company's overseas operations to account for around half of total sales in 2020, as it plans to expand businesses mainly in emerging markets, said Kyodo. The soft drink unit aims to achieve sales of 2 trillion yen ( about 20.1 billion U.S. dollars) by 2020. The IPO of 3.8 billion U.S. dollars is the world's second largest one this year and the largest in Asia this year, followed by the 2.1-billion-dollar listing of the Thailand's BTS Rail Mass Transit Growth in April.