Social-media companies, take note: LinkedIn Corp.’s swift rise on its first day of trading Thursday proves that U.S. investors are hungry for similar stories.
The professional-networking site’s shares opened at $83 on the New York Stock Exchange, up 84% from its initial public offering price of $45. It was recently changing hands at $112 a share, up 150%, valuing the company at more than $10 billion.
LinkedIn’s IPO had priced at the high end of its expected $42 to $45 range, which was boosted by $10 earlier this week in the face of strong demand.
The company’ chief executive officer, Jeffrey Weiner, said in an interview that he wasn’t placing much importance on how his company’s stock performed on its first day. Mr. Weiner’s stake in the company is now worth more than $200 million.
“To be honest with you, I didn’t give a lot of thought to what the opening would be like,” Mr. Weiner said. “This isn’t necessarily indicative of anything. The market will do what it will do. What we are completely focused on is our long-term plans and our fundamentals, and getting that right.”
The offering of 7.84 million shares—the biggest U.S. Internet IPO since Google Inc., analysts say—has been a controversial one, as many across Silicon Valley and Wall Street say that investors are being taken in by a new Internet bubble. But none of that deterred investors, who gobbled up shares of an offering led by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
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