Mar 26, 2014
IPOs
Robotics Firm With Evil Name Wins Investors
- A man demonstrates a work-assist robot suit developed by Cyberdyne Inc. at Chiba Institute of Technology’s Shibazono campus in Narashino, Japan.
- Bloomberg News
A Japanese company with one of the most ominous corporate names in movie lore just went public.
Shares in Cyberdyne Inc. more than doubled in price on their first day of trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. That’s Cyberdyne the maker of exoskeleton suits, not Cyberdyne the fictional defense firm behind Skynet, the artificial intelligence system that turned Earth into an apocalyptic wasteland in the Terminator series.
And the tongue-in-cheek sci-fi references don’t end there. The Tsukuba-based startup’s exoskeleton suits recall another self-aware creation of human technology: HAL from “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Cyberdyne’s HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) suits are designed to help nursing-home workers lift heavy objects and people undergoing physiotherapy recover strength in their arms or legs.
Despite–or perhaps thanks to–the sinister-sounding origins of the company’s name, Cyberdyne’s shares opened at more than double its premarket price of ¥3,700 on the Mothers section of the Tokyo bourse.
- Physiotherapists help fit Mieko Kawakami, who suffers from gait disorder, into a Cyberdyne exoskeleton at the company’s facility in Tsukuba, Japan earlier this year.
- Bloomberg News
Yoshiyuki Sankai, the firm’s president told the Nikkei that he plans to retain about 88% of voting rights after the initial public offering through a special class of stock that has 10 votes per share to prevent the company’s HAL suits from being used for military purposes.
The startup’s popularity comes as a relief in an IPO market littered with recent disasters amid macroeconomic concerns, such as fears of rising interest rates in the U.S., an impending sales tax increase in Japan, and signs of a slowdown in China. Shares in both Japan Display and battery maker Hitachi Maxell opened well below their premarket prices in debuts earlier this month.
Cyberdyne faces increasing competition from bigger companies such as Toyota and Yaskawa Electric, as well as overseas rivals like U.S.-based Ekso Bionics.
It said it expects a net loss of ¥659 million ($6.44 million) on sales of ¥469 million in the year ending March 31.
Naoko – marry me?
Ah, the 五毛党 Chinese ultranationalists have arrived. Never miss out on an opportunity to lash out at the Japanese, right? No matter what the topic!
For God’s sake, you do realise that the Terminator movies were fictional, no? So how do you make the connection from a company that’s building something genuinely useful, to stirring up the old pot of historical enmity between Japan and China? Or are you simply looking to criticise anything that has anything to do with Japan because you’re trying to influence readers’ opinion against it?
There seems to be no natural capability of the Japanese to see that there is no humor in anti-human behavior. I’m expecting a Japanese company to come up with Dachau Brand Shower Heads, or Auschwitz Company Ovens, or Nanjing Massacre Brand Kitchen Knife sets. Is there anyone anywhere in Japan who understands that it is important to at least occasionally suppress that charming Japanese tendency to relish bloodthirst, violence and sadism?