Japanese chipmaking equipment firm Kokusai Electric Corp. (stock code: 6525) debuted Wednesday on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, with its shares, listed in Japan's largest initial public offering this year, rising by 15 percent at the start of trading.

The share of Kokusai Electric first changed hands at 2,116 yen on the Tokyo market's top-tier Prime Market, enjoying continued buying to top 2,300 yen in mid-morning.

The company's market capitalization was 424 billion yen ($2.8 billion) based on the IPO price of 1,840 yen, but at the start of trade the company's value leaped to 487 billion yen.

Kokusai Electric, formerly a Hitachi Ltd. unit, is owned by U.S. private equity giant Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. which acquired the unit and spun off the semiconductor device manufacturing business in 2018.

Kokusai Electric produces machines that deposit films on silicon wafers. It has a manufacturing base in Toyama Prefecture and is constructing another factory in the central Japan prefecture.

The company's shareholders include the Qatar Investment Authority, which acquired around a 5 percent stake in June while noting that the semiconductor device market is seeing "rapid growth with increasing demand" from such industries as artificial intelligence.

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