2023-12-15 07:41:21
On the 15th, the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission recommended that the Financial Services Agency impose administrative sanctions on SBI Securities, a subsidiary of SBI Holdings, for manipulating the initial stock price during its initial public offering (IPO).announcementdid.
According to the presentation materials, from December 2020 to September 2021, the executive officer and head of institutional investor sales for three stocks for which SBI Securities served as lead underwriter caused the initial price to fluctuate above the public offering price. The company instructed investors to make purchases at the same price as the public offering price through employees of its local subsidiary in Hong Kong and three financial instruments intermediaries (IFAs).
In response, the stock exchange received purchase orders from overseas hedge funds and individual investors with the public offering price as the limit price for a total of 2,256,600 shares of the three stocks before the listing date. This is an act prohibited by the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act.
According to the Oversight Committee, these actions were led by the institutional investor sales manager and the executive officer in charge of IFA’s business department. The instructions included language such as not wanting the IPO price to fall. It has been pointed out that the general idea behind this is that by highlighting the fact that the initial price of the issue for which he was the lead manager was higher than the public offering price, he was trying to attract future lead managers. The involvement of SBI Securities President Masato Takamura and Chairman Yoshitaka Kitao has not been acknowledged.
As competition to acquire customers in online securities markets intensifies, SBI Securities is the first to announce that it will waive trading fees for domestic stocks.On the other hand, in order to diversify revenue sources, we are expanding our corporate business.strengthenWas.settlement of accountsmaterialAccording to the company, its IPO underwriting involvement rate has been the highest in the industry since the fiscal year ended March 2013, and it was involved in 47 of the 49 total listed companies in Japan between April and September of this year.
In response to the supervisory committee’s recommendation, SBI Securities issued a statement saying, “We take the recommendation seriously and will work to improve and prevent recurrence.”
Regarding IPO deals, in April, Mizuho Securities, a subsidiary of Mizuho Financial Group, set an assumed issue price lower than the price claimed by the companies in the process of setting the public offering price, and requested the companies to accept it. The Fair Trade Commission has warned the company of conduct that may lead to a violation of the law (abuse of a dominant position).
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(Article updated with some information added in 3rd and 4th paragraphs)
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