IPS, Inc. (TSE Prime: 4390) will sell 1,263,500 new shares in a public offering to pay for a submarine cable branch line and landing station in Wakayama Prefecture. The board resolved on 5 October 2026 to proceed. The company says estimated net proceeds, capped at ¥5.49bn across the offering and a linked allotment, will go entirely to that project by the fiscal year ending March 2030.
How the shares are structured
Mizuho Securities will underwrite the whole offering on a firm-commitment basis. IPS pays no underwriting fee; Mizuho keeps the gap between the offer price and the amount it pays IPS. The price will be set on 14 or 15 October 2026 at a provisional range of 0.90 to 1.00 times that day's Tokyo closing price.
The offering comes with a greenshoe. Mizuho may borrow up to 189,500 shares from existing shareholders and sell them alongside the offering. To replace the borrowed stock, IPS also resolved a third-party allotment of up to 189,500 new shares to Mizuho, payable on 18 November 2026. These are two sides of one mechanism, not 379,000 extra shares. Mizuho can buy shares in the market until 13 November to return the loan, and the allotment shrinks or lapses to the extent it does. If the over-allotment is not carried out, no allotment shares are issued.
| Stage | Issued shares |
|---|---|
| Current | 13,108,900 |
| After public offering of 1,263,500 shares | 14,372,400 |
| After full third-party allotment of 189,500 shares | 14,561,900 |
Where the money goes
The proceeds are earmarked for the Wakayama project: laying a branch line of the Candle submarine cable and building a cable landing station in the prefecture. IPS puts the full project at roughly ¥23bn through March 2030, but that figure includes investment by prospective partners. The release says IPS is weighing a business scheme that may include joint work with those partners and the use of various schemes, and that its own share will be decided after that review. Any leftover proceeds are slated for investment in international communications capacity and networks, including in the Philippines.
Candle is a roughly 8,000km system linking Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. IPS joined the consortium in July 2025 alongside Meta Platforms, SoftBank, TM Technology Services and PT XLSmart Telecom Sejahtera. IPS's capital plan lists ¥19bn for its share of Candle construction, of which ¥5.214bn had been paid by 31 August 2026, with completion due during 2028. The branch-line row shows ¥23bn, which a footnote says combines the branch line and the landing station and includes prospective partners' planned investment; it names own funds and the capital raise as funding.
What is still open
The proceeds figure is an estimate. The offer price and the size of the over-allotment sale are unset until pricing on 14 or 15 October, and the final number of allotment shares depends on Mizuho's covering purchases and on whether it applies by 17 November. The release describes the Wakayama project as still under review. Two IPS shareholders have agreed not to sell shares from the pricing date until the 180th day after delivery without Mizuho's written consent, and IPS has given a similar pledge on issuing equity, though Mizuho can waive either at its discretion.