Japan's Kioxia to Go Public in Mid-Dec.

Tokyo, Nov. 21 (Jiji Press)--Japanese flash memory maker Kioxia Holdings Corp. will go public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in mid-December, it was learned Thursday.

The company is expected to have a market capitalization of some 750 billion yen. The TSE is to approve Kioxia's listing as early as Friday.

Amid the spreading use of artificial intelligence, the company believes that demand for cutting-edge flash memory for data centers will rise.

Kioxia will use the funds raised by the initial public offering, projected to be up to 99.1 billion yen, to invest in facilities related to cutting-edge flash memory for AI. Though its market capitalization is likely to be far smaller than initial expectations of around 1.5 trillion yen, the company hopes to boost its corporate value through increased production investments.

Kioxia, previously called Toshiba Memory Corp., filed for stock listing approval with the TSE in August this year, aiming to go public in October, but it put off doing so due to the sluggish market.

To shorten the time for listing procedures, Kioxia became the first company in Japan to file a securities registration statement with the Financial Services Agency before receiving approval for the listing.

After the listing, shareholders such as U.S. investment fund Bain Capital LP and Toshiba Corp. are expected to sell part of their stakes.

Kioxia produces cutting-edge flash memory at its plant in the city of Yokkaichi in Mie Prefecture, central Japan. A new section of its plant in the city of Kitakami in Iwate Prefecture, northeastern Japan, which has not been operated due to the weak market, is set to go online to produce cutting-edge flash memory from autumn next year.

In 2017, Toshiba, which fell into financial crisis, spun off its profitable flash memory business as Toshiba Memory. It was sold to an international consortium including Bain Capital for about 2 trillion yen and the company name changed to its current one in 2019.

Kioxia postponed its TSE debut in 2020 due to tensions between the United States and China, although the listing had been approved.

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