Sky Perfect $1.4 Billion Share Sale Draws 20 Times More Demand Than Supply
By Jason Singer and Keiko Kambara
bloomberg.com
Tokyo, Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Sky Perfect Communications Inc., a Japanese satellite broadcaster partly owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., attracted orders from foreign investors for almost 20 times the shares on offer in the company's initial sale, bankers involved in the sale said.
Sky Perfect is raising as much as 148.8 billion yen ($1.37 billion) in its first-time sale of 465,000 shares. The company is likely to set a price close to the top of the 280,000 yen to 320,000 yen price range tomorrow, the bankers said.
Sky Perfect is one of Japan's largest digital satellite broadcasters with 2.36 million subscribers and ties to U.S.-based Hughes Electronics Corp. through its merger with DirectTV Japan Management Inc. The broadcaster, which has 174 television channels and 106 radio stations, has been investing in programming to attract subscribers and gain market share.
``Sky Perfect has been aggressively buying the rights to broadcast some attractive content,'' including World Cup soccer games, said Natsuko Higuchi, an analyst at Credit Lyonnais Securities (Japan). ``Once it's able to sell shares to the public to raise money, there's no doubt that it will even more aggressively invest in getting more content.''
The international portion of the sale closed yesterday. Japanese investors have until noon today to apply for shares, and have already subscribed for more than five times the number available to them, the bankers said.
Programming
Sky Perfect ``is currently the only satellite broadcasting company in Japan offering a variety of programming, including sports, movies and music,'' Lilik Widjaja, an analyst at Cazenove & Co., said in a research report. ``It is likely that with content business added to the SkyPerfect TV's portfolio, investors may be willing to pay a premium for the shares.''
Nomura Securities Co. and Merrill Lynch & Co. are arranging the offering, with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. helping to organize the international sale.
Sony Corp., Itochu Corp., Newscorp Japan Holdings BV, Softbank Corp. and Fuji Television Network Inc. are the company's largest shareholders, with 9.906 percent each. Softbank has said it will sell a fourth of its stake in the IPO. |
