Koriyama, Japan-based pachinko parlor operators Niraku Corporation plans to receive 0 million in an initial public offering in the first half of 2015, although sources said Niraku has not yet appointed investment banks or applied to the Hong Kong stock exchange for permission to list.
The action would be the first IPO by a foreign company in Hong Kong since last December. The latest were Singapore’s Kingbo Strike Ltd. and Japan’s Econtext Asia Ltd., which raised a combined $77 million.
Founded in 1950, Niraku operates 54 pachinko parlors in Tokyo and surrounding areas, as well as the northeastern areas of Fukushima and Miyagi. After a 15 percent increase in sales in 2012 and 2013, the company’s sales for the year ended in March dropped 2.2 percent to $2.18 billion; its offices in Fukushima were struck by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
Pachinko games are a hybrid of pinball and slot machines, which have skirted a nationwide gambling ban to become an industry that takes in bets of $175 billion, according to the Japan Productivity Center.
Niraku hopes to follow the lead of Tokyo-based pachinko operator Dynam Japan Holdings Company, whose shares have increased 47 percent in Hong Kong trading since its IPO in August 2012 raised $202 million, according to Bloomberg data.
