And they kept that figure during the final bookbuilding process, even with the outage and a global equities selloff. Including a greenshoe over-allotment of about 160 million shares, SoftBank sold a total of roughly 1.76 billion shares. Telecommunications carrier stocks usually trade at around 5 to 6 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation. Nearest rivals NTT Docomo Inc and KDDI Corp trade at about 4.4 times and 5.5 times Ebitda, respectively. SoftBank's IPO was priced at 8.2 times, according to Bernstein's Lane. "It was pricier compared with its rivals," said Makoto Kikuchi, founder of Myojo Asset Management Co. "They went out of their way to set the price at a premium." To justify that premium, SoftBank is offering a dividend payout ratio of about 85 per cent of net income.