Yesterday it was reported that Japan Display is planning to raise ¥200 billion (around $2 billion USD) in an IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. JDI will be valued at around ¥700 - $800 billion ($7 to $8 billion USD) and will use the money to invest in new capacity and OLED technology.
JDI was formed in November 2011 by Sony, Hitachi, and Toshiba who combined their small/medium panel production capabilities and received $2 billion from Japan's Innovation Network Corp (INCJ). The company is currently the largest small/medium display producer and reportedly supplying displays to Apple an Google among others.
In May JDI announced that they decided to built a pilot 4.5-Gen OLED display manufacturing line that will start small-scale production (4,000 substrate a month) in the spring of 2014. In April JDI unveiled a new 5.2" Full-HD (423 ppi) OLED panel, using an WRGB structure and an LTPS backplane, just four months after JDI announced a 4.5" 1280x720 (326 ppi) panel. JDI is showing the new panel at SID 2013.
Japan Display, by the way, posted the following comment on its site following this report: "Japan Display wishes to make clear that today’s media reports concerning JDI's plan to list its stock are not based on any statement made by JDI. JDI currently has nothing specific to announce relating to the subject matter of the media reports referred to above."
