Tokyo - Shares in McDonalds (Japan) Ltd were snapped up by hungry investors yesterday at a premium to their offer price in the company's debut on the Japanese stock market.
Thirty years after its arrival in the land of fish and rice, the hamburger chain became Japan's biggest initial public offering on the Jasdaq over-the-counter market and the first foreign operation of the US chain to float overseas.
"For the past 30 years we have been trying to develop a new food culture in Japan," McDonalds Japan president, Mr Den Fujita, told a news conference in Tokyo. "Now we would like to be the leader of the Jasdaq market."
McDonalds shares were fixed at 4,700 yen on their first day of trading, compared to the initial public offer price of 4,300 yen.
Valued at 624.9 billion yen, McDonalds Japan is the biggest stock on the tech-weighted Jasdaq index, dwarfing former leader Yahoo Japan Corp. which was valued around 347 billion yen yesterday.