JX Advanced Metals (5016.JP) is set to debut in Tokyo on Wednesday, March 19, in Japan's largest IPO since SoftBank in 2018. The company priced at ¥820, the top of its downwardly revised range, to raise $2.6 billion at a $5.2 billion market cap. A carve-out of Japanese oil giant ENEOS, JX Advanced Metals mines, smelts, and refines a wide array of metals, such as copper, gold, silver, and platinum. The company’s materials are used for semiconductors, batteries, digital displays, cameras, and other industries.
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In recent years, Japan’s IPO market has been marked by a handful of large listings, including spin-offs from large conglomerates similar to JX Advanced Metals. Most of Japan’s latest sizable IPOs have traded up, and the class of 2023 and 2024 average a return from offer of 66%. Top performers include Rakuten’s banking unit Rakuten Bank (5838.JP, +349% from offer) in April 2023, online banking joint venture SBI Sumishin Net Bank (7163.JP; +233%) in March 2023, and Toshiba’s memory chip unit Kioxia (285A.JP; +89%) in December 2024.
Source: Renaissance Capital, returns as of 3/13/25. Includes Japanese IPOs that have raised at least $100 million.JX Advanced Metals is coming public amid heightened volatility in global markets. Japanese equities have broadly sold off over the past month, and the Nikkei 225 is down -6% YTD. On the other hand, JX Advanced Metals has benefited from increasing chip production and rising copper prices, with copper futures up nearly 20% YTD.
JX Advanced Metals’ financials are complicated by divestments and restructuring, as it shifts focus from mining and smelting towards semiconductor materials. The company has completely or partially divested from numerous operations in recent years, including the Caserones Copper Mine in Chile, its electronics components subsidiary JX Metals Precision Technology, South Korean copper smelter LS-Nikko, and copper miner and refiner Pan Pacific Copper. As a result, revenue fell -54% y/y during the 9mo ended 12/31/2024, but its EBITDA and net income both grew over the same period.
