Pursuits
Why Line’s Two-Year Wait for IPO Cost It $4 Billion in Valuation
- Planned public offering will value Line at $5.5 billion
- That’s about 40% lower than when it first filed in 2014
Line IPO Wait Costs $4B in Valuation
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Line Corp. has finally pulled the trigger on an initial public offering after a two-year hiatus. That period of hesitation may have cost the messaging service $4 billion in valuation as Facebook Inc. began encroaching on its turf and markets cooled on technology company debuts.
Japan’s leading mobile messaging service is aiming to raise as much as 113 billion yen ($1 billion) in July at a market value of roughly 588 billion yen, according to data in its Friday IPO filings. That’s down 40 percent from an estimated 1 trillion yen when it first filed for an offering in 2014. The price range will be set on June 27, and the final price July 11.