Tokyo Metro: Asia’s oldest subway goes public

Tokyo Metro shares rocketed greater than 40 p.c on their stock market debut, raising $2.3 billion in Japan’s biggest preliminary public offering (IPO) in six years – Copyright AFP Behrouz MEHRI

Katie Forster

On daily basis six and a half of million participants scuttle Tokyo Metro’s 9 traces, share of a dizzyingly complex transport network serving the Eastern megacity and its sprawling suburbs.

Tokyo Metro shares rocketed greater than 40 p.c on their stock market debut Wednesday, raising $2.3 billion in Japan’s biggest preliminary public offering (IPO) in six years.

Listed here are some info about the firm and its list:

– Asia’s first subway –

London constructed the first public underground railway, nonetheless in 1927 Tokyo grew to change into the first Asian metropolis with a subway thanks to a 2.2-kilometre (1.4-mile) observe from Ueno to Asakusa.

The trains ran every three minutes on what is now share of Tokyo Metro’s as much as the moment-day Ginza Line nonetheless had been crowded with passengers who beforehand overran the metropolis’s trams.

Having slowed in the future of and after World War II, construction of public transport picked up tempo as Japan rebuilt itself into a most well-known financial strength.

The firm Tokyo Metro modified into incorporated in 2004, adopting its heart-formed “M” logo in space of the network’s outdated one: a spiky, house-age “S” for subway.

– Complex diagram –

Tokyo Metro’s 9 traces — named Ginza, Marunouchi, Hibiya, Tozai, Chiyoda, Yurakucho, Hanzomon, Namboku and Fukutoshin — stretch for a entire of 195 kilometres.

The spotless and punctual air-conditioned trains get handiest one share of a huge underground and overground rail system serving Bigger Tokyo, in overall cited because the enviornment’s biggest metropolis roar.

All nonetheless two of the 9 Tokyo Metro routes connect to other dispute traces, allowing pronounce get entry to to the capital for commuters in farther flung areas.

Four other subway traces are speed one by one by the Tokyo authorities, alongside deepest services and East Japan Railway’s overground routes love the Yamanote Line, whose green trains lift millions in a loop spherical the metropolis.

Irregular jingles are performed at each Tokyo Metro situation when a dispute is on the platform. 

As an illustration, at Ginza Field, the Marunouchi line’s tunes are called “The following day’s Door” and “The March of a Diminutive Chook”.

– IPO –

The IPO is Japan’s biggest since 2018 when tech and telecoms conglomerate SoftBank Community raised a nationwide sage of $23.5 billion by list its mobile unit.

On Wednesday morning, Tokyo Metro shares traded at 1,745 yen, up forty five p.c from their subject tag of 1,200 yen, with stories saying the topic modified into 15 times oversubscribed amongst merchants.

Sooner than the IPO, the nationwide authorities owned factual over half of of Tokyo Metro shares and the Tokyo metropolis authorities owned the reduction. The list reduces entire roar ownership to spherical 50 p.c.

The funds raised shall be aged to repay bonds issued to finance the reconstruction of northeastern Japan after the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear pain that killed 18,000 participants.

– Free tickets –

Tokyo Metro says merchants who aquire 200 shares or more will find some free tickets to its museum and golf range, along with free tempura toppings at its noodle stands.

The “low volatility” of a agency love Tokyo Metro makes their shares a safe funding prospect for Eastern households, talked about Hideaki Miyajima, a professor of commerce at Waseda College.

“And for institutional merchants, the Eastern market is terribly favourable given the very low alternate charge” of the yen and unique corporate governance reforms, he told AFP.

– Going underground –

In earthquake-vulnerable Japan, Tokyo Metro trains are space as much as quit factual before a sturdy jolt hits, the exhaust of true-time seismic recordsdata from monitoring stations.

Native weather change could well most seemingly be bringing more frequent and intense flooding to the capital, with some Tokyo subway stations inundated in August by torrential rain.

Moreover buried under the Bigger Tokyo roar is the enviornment’s biggest flood tank, a cavernous subterranean reservoir constructed to offer protection to the metropolis from storms and typhoons.