SoftBank expected to raise $23.5b in IPO

SofBbank Group Corp is expected to raise $23.5 billion in an initial public offering of its mobile unit with 1,500 yen ($13) per share on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Dec 19, wallstreetcn.com reported on Monday.

The scale of the IPO is dubbed as the largest in Japan's history and second-largest worldwide, following Alibaba's $25 billion IPO record in 2014.

This initial public offering will transform SoftBank, the first Japanese firm to forgo an IPO price range, from a Japanese telecom company to a global tech investment firm, the report said.

The company will sell nearly 2 billion shares in this IPO, 80 percent of which will go to Japanese retail investors with a 5 percent dividend, the highest in Japan.

SoftBank said the demand for the shares has been much greater than the number of shares they are allocated to sell, and the company will sell all reserved shares for extra demand.

Founded in 1981, SoftBank manages the world's largest technology private equity fund with a total scale of $100 billion.

The company invested in a series of startups, ranging from small game-makers to ride-hailing giants such as Uber, and it was also the first carrier in Japan to offer Apple's iPhone.