SBI Says It Made An Error Allocating Shares in SoftBank IPO
Customers were told they can get fewer shares than requested.
(Bloomberg) -- SBI Holdings Inc., one of the lead underwriters for SoftBank Group Corp.’s initial public offering of its domestic telecom unit, said it made an error allocating some of the 180 billion yen ($1.6 billion) worth of shares it’s selling to investors.
After the underwriter held a lottery on Dec. 10 to distribute the shares in the offering to retail customers, some of them were notified they will get fewer shares than requested. SBI on Wednesday contacted customers correcting the error and saying they can have more stock, said Tsuyoshi Ogata, a senior manager in SBI’s corporate planning department.
That prompted speculation on social media that the sudden availability of more shares is due to massive cancellation of orders. SBI denied the rumors and declined to say how many of its 4.45 million accounts were affected or give the specific amount of money in question. Users impacted by the error will have to choose whether to accept additional shares or to cancel the order entirely.
“We have an avalanche of inquiries from customers who want to buy more shares,” Ogata said. SBI added more staff to handle inquires about the IPO and extended the deadline for purchases until 6 p.m. local time.
SoftBank Group fell as much as 2.7 percent and SBI Holdings slid as much as 5.3 percent in Tokyo trading Thursday, while the Nikkei 225 rose.
SoftBank set the final price of its 2.65 trillion yen IPO on Monday at 1,500 yen. The shares of the new entity, SoftBank Corp., will begin trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Dec. 19.
To contact the reporters on this story: Takahiko Hyuga in Tokyo at thyuga@bloomberg.net;Pavel Alpeyev in Tokyo at palpeyev@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Robert Fenner at rfenner@bloomberg.net, Peter Elstrom
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