 "Twitter shares soar 92 per cent in frenzied debut, hit $50 apiece")
Twitter Inc soared as much as 92 per cent in its first day of trading on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange as investors snapped up shares in the popular microblogging site in a frenzy that recalled the days of the dot-com bubble.
The shares opened at $45.10 a share, up from the initial public offering price of $26 set on Wednesday, then added to those gains, hitting a high of $50. They were up 73.7 per cent to $45.15 at midday.
Sources said the floatation drew strong demand, with investors asking for 30 times the number of shares on offer as they bet on potential growth at the money-losing social media company.
The shares opened 75 per cent above the $26 initial public offering price set on Wednesday, making it the biggest in a series of huge opening day “pops” for IPOs.
Including restricted share units and other securities that could be exercised in the coming months, the company’s market value was over $28 billion.
Twitter executives including Chief Executive Dick Costolo and the company’s three co-founders — Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey — went to the floor of the NYSE to witness the IPO. The Big Board, which marked the occasion with an enormous banner with Twitter’s bird logo along its Broad Street facade, snatched the offering away from Nasdaq after the normally tech-focused Nasdaq stumbled with the larger Facebook flotation last year.
Twitter’s building staff opened its offices in San Francisco extra early, at 5.30 am on Thursday. By 7.30 am, hundreds of employees had flocked to their ninth floor cafeteria to watch Stewart ring the opening bell on TV while eating “cronuts,” a croissant-doughnut hybrid, made by Twitter’s resident chef, Lance Holton.
The microblogging network priced its 70 million shares at above the targeted range of $23 to $25, which had been raised once before. The IPO values Twitter at $14.1 billion, with the potential to reach $14.4 billion if underwriters exercise an overallotment option.
If the full overallotment is exercised, as expected, Twitter could raise $2.1 billion, making it the second largest internet offering in the United States behind Facebook Inc’s $16 billion IPO last year and ahead of Google Inc’s 2004 IPO, according to Thomson Reuters data.
The apparently glitch-free opening capped off what was a textbook IPO for Goldman Sachs Group Inc, which beat arch rival Morgan Stanley to the lead position on the deal.
The shares opened at $45.10 a share, up from the initial public offering price of $26 set on Wednesday, then added to those gains, hitting a high of $50. They were up 73.7 per cent to $45.15 at midday.
Sources said the floatation drew strong demand, with investors asking for 30 times the number of shares on offer as they bet on potential growth at the money-losing social media company.
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The opening price valued the shares at about 22 times forecast 2014 sales, nearly double that multiple at social media rivals Facebook Inc.
The shares opened 75 per cent above the $26 initial public offering price set on Wednesday, making it the biggest in a series of huge opening day “pops” for IPOs.
Including restricted share units and other securities that could be exercised in the coming months, the company’s market value was over $28 billion.
Twitter executives including Chief Executive Dick Costolo and the company’s three co-founders — Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey — went to the floor of the NYSE to witness the IPO. The Big Board, which marked the occasion with an enormous banner with Twitter’s bird logo along its Broad Street facade, snatched the offering away from Nasdaq after the normally tech-focused Nasdaq stumbled with the larger Facebook flotation last year.
Twitter’s building staff opened its offices in San Francisco extra early, at 5.30 am on Thursday. By 7.30 am, hundreds of employees had flocked to their ninth floor cafeteria to watch Stewart ring the opening bell on TV while eating “cronuts,” a croissant-doughnut hybrid, made by Twitter’s resident chef, Lance Holton.
The microblogging network priced its 70 million shares at above the targeted range of $23 to $25, which had been raised once before. The IPO values Twitter at $14.1 billion, with the potential to reach $14.4 billion if underwriters exercise an overallotment option.
If the full overallotment is exercised, as expected, Twitter could raise $2.1 billion, making it the second largest internet offering in the United States behind Facebook Inc’s $16 billion IPO last year and ahead of Google Inc’s 2004 IPO, according to Thomson Reuters data.
The apparently glitch-free opening capped off what was a textbook IPO for Goldman Sachs Group Inc, which beat arch rival Morgan Stanley to the lead position on the deal.