IPO of Yukiguni Maitake on the Tokyo Stock Exchange raising $405.5m for Bain Capital
2020
We are pleased to announce that STJ has advised Bain Capital Partners on the successful Initial Public Offering of Yukiguni Maitake on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Yukiguni Maitake is Japan’s leading mushroom producer and specialises in agritech to produce mushrooms in a controlled environment.
Bain Capital purchased the company in 2015 and has invested heavily to improve the technology, business, management and corporate governance.
The IPO was completed during the most challenging period of COVID and during volatile market conditions. This IPO represents a landmark transaction because it utilized the changes which have taken 10 years to implement. STJ’s innovations in the Japanese capital markets, which build on proposals made to the FSA by the London Stock Exchange in 2010. These innovations were first used in international IPOs but now used for the first time in domestic “Rinpo-style” IPOs including full investor education before launch, transparency of investor feedback, pilot fishing, priority lists, incentive fees and others.
BAIN sold its entire holding comprising 51% of the company raising JPY 42.6bn (USD 405.5m) and valuing the company at JPY 87.7bn (USD 835.6m) at the issue price. The domestic portion and international portion account for 70% and 30% each of the offering. Priced at JPY 2,200, against the price range of JPY 2,000-2,400, the IPO attracted very strong interest from international institutional investors, especially long-only investors which account for the majority of the demand. Domestic retail investors also actively participated and the retail tranche was heavily oversubscribed. The company had a smooth debut on the Tokyo Stock Exchange with the share price closing 4% below the IPO price on the first days’ trading.
STJ advised the company and BAIN throughout the entire IPO process for a period of over 17 months on all the key aspects of the offering including equity story preparation, selection of syndicate banks, management of a bespoke and extensive investor education program (including PRS, Pilot Fishing and IPO marketing), structure of the offering, marketing materials preparation, valuation feedback analysis, price range setting, pricing tactics and allocations.
This is STJ’s 8th IPO in Japan since its inception and 4th for Bain Capital. STJ has advised on the overwhelming majority of mid-sized IPOs in Japan on behalf of international Private Equity firms, including Bain, Carlyle, CVC and Permira and remains actively engaged on a variety of additional projects.
STJ is particularly proud of this IPO because it is for a domestic company which uses the domestic IPO process without the need for translation of the prospectus; therefore it has very wide applicability to medium and smaller Japanese companies.