Cerberus pulls out of Seibu IPO as pricing slashed

Japanese railway and property conglomerate Seibu Holdings yesterday slashed the estimated price and size of its initial public offering by as much as a third as confidence in the economy wavers, denying its largest shareholder US private equity firm Cerberus an exit from an often fraught relationship.

The scaled back expectations for what would have been one of Japan's biggest IPOs this year comes amid weak demand for Japanese stocks, which are the worst performing in developed markets. Seibu said it was dropping the tentative price of its IPO by as much as 30 per cent to 1,600-1,800 yen per share from the initial estimate of 2,300 announced in March. It also plans to cut the number of shares offered to 27.8 million from an earlier 80.9 million as Cerberus chose to not sell any of its 35.5 per cent stake in the IPO. – ( Reuters )