Dai-ichi Life Insurance soars in biggest IPO in 12 years

TOKYO - Shares of Dai-ichi Life Insurance Co, Japan’s second-largest life insurer, surged 14 percent to 160,000 yen ($1,713) when they made their debut Thursday on the Tokyo Stock Exchange after the nation’s largest initial public offering (IPO) in more than a decade.

The insurer, formerly a mutually owned company, was valued at 1.4 trillion yen based on the IPO price of 140,000 yen per share. That sum made Dai-ichi the largest capitalisation listing since mobile telecommunications carrier NTT Docomo Inc’s 7.4-trillion-yen issue in 1998.

The exchange expected high trading volume and decided to accept orders until 1 p.m. (0400 GMT) and to halt trading in Dai-ichi as soon as the price was set. Regular trading was to start Friday.

Dai-ichi was established in 1902 and as of March 2009 had 8.23 million policy holders, the insurer said on its website.