Moving to a holding company and listing late, with an offering of about ¥220 billion (2010)

On listing late

To read this listing only as a delay in raising capital is to stop at the surface. At the core of the fact that a $11.4B (¥1tn) company walked on unlisted and came to market last among the big drug makers is a way of thinking that treats listing as a piece of governance design. The aim shows in a single detail: the man who rang the bell on the day was not President Higuchi but Chairman Otsuka Akihiko. Delaying avoided short-term shareholder pressure, left decision-making led by the founding family, and took from the market only the funding room the group needed — the offering of about $2.5B (¥220bn) was a choice placed on top of that line.

That said, one cannot declare the late listing simply correct. Even with the roughly $1.8B (¥160bn) it raised and the time that bought, the expiry of Abilify’s patent — already visible on the day of listing — remained a burden, and around 2015 the path to filling the hole was still judged to be out of sight. Precisely because it had not hurried to the market, the grace period left for building the next pillar was short. Whether the line drawn between the governance it wanted to protect and the approaching patent cliff sat in the right place will be measured together with the success or failure of the post-Abilify era.