Nippon Electric Glass Jumps After Report on LCD Glass Factory

Nippon Electric Glass Co. soared the most in more than a year in Tokyo trading after a newspaper said the Japanese glassmaker will build a facility to make glass for liquid crystal displays. The company denied the report.

Nippon Electric Glass surged by the daily limit of 80 yen, or 16 percent, to 579 yen, as of the morning break on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the biggest advance since September 2007. It had the largest gain among 1,688 companies on the MSCI World Index.

The company will spend 2 to 3 billion yen ($32 million) in the spring to build a facility in its home prefecture of Shiga to make substrate glass for LCD televisions, the Nikkei newspaper reported, without saying where it got the information. Nippon Electric aims to expand its sales from Taiwan and South Korean manufacturers to domestic makers such as Sharp Corp. and Panasonic Corp., the report said.

“The report on Nippon Electric Glass’ spending plan relieved a very pessimistic view among investors regarding LCD demand,” said Mitsushige Akino, who oversees about $468 million at Tokyo-based Ichiyoshi Investment Management.

Nippon Electric Glass, whose shares lost 75 percent of their value last year, said the report is based on speculation.

“Although we aim to increase orders from domestic companies in the medium and long term, we do not have any specific plans yet,” company spokesman Takashi Chisaka said by phone.

Shares of Sharp, Japan’s biggest maker of LCD televisions, rose 9.8 percent in morning trading, the most since Oct. 28. Panasonic, which makes Viera-brand televisions, rose 3.2 percent.