What’s Going On Here?If patience is a virtue, Japanese investors must be pretty darn virtuous: they’ve waited since April for an initial public offering (IPO), and now three new companies are ready to join the country’s stock market later this month. What Does This Mean?The three companies breaking cover first are online media firm Locoguide, tech company Ficha, and retailer Copa. And while they’re not aiming to raise groundbreaking sums, their listings may still go some way to restoring confidence among Japanese investors, while paving the way for other companies waiting in the wings.
The pandemic’s brought IPOs around the world to a halt, but companies’ confidence has picked back up now that we seem to be past the worst of it. In fact, just one of the three aforementioned companies is predicting their annual profit will shrink this year compared to last. Why Should I Care?The bigger picture: When life gives you lemons...
Stateside IPOs are well on the road to recovery too: Warner Music Group raised $2 billion when it went public earlier this month. But that’s just the beginning: data analytics firm Palantir’s long-awaited stock market listing is expected to kick off in the next couple of weeks, while insure-tech Lemonade – whose losses eclipsed its revenue last year – will go public soon too. And since it wasn’t so long ago that investors were all over shares of loss-making companies, other unprofitable firms – like Airbnb – might be watching closely to see how smoothly Lemonade goes down.
Zooming out: Daddy needs a brand new listing.
IPOs in Hong Kong and China have picked up too, but not for entirely positive reasons. Rising US-China tensions have seen a few major companies try to boost their investor bases with secondary listings in Hong Kong, including China-based but US-listed NetEase and Chinese ecommerce giant JD.com. Mega microchip maker SMIC, meanwhile, hoped to court new investors by selling new shares in China, in addition to those already listed in Hong Kong. | 
