First Data Corp.’s shares bounced up after beginning trading Thursday morning, but the Atlanta company’s shares were offered at $16, below the $18-$20 range it expected earlier this month.
The stock opened at $16.39 and rose 2 percent in early trading, according to Dow Jones.
The $16 initial price translates into as much as $2.9 billion that First Data will raise in the initial public offering, making it the second largest IPO by a Georgia-based company.
UPS had a $5.5 billion offering in the late 1990s.
But the lower price is up to a $736 million discount off what First Data was hoping to raise, eight years after private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts bought the payments processor in a debt-backed $29 billion buyout.
Some industry experts had intially expected First Data’s IPO to total about $5 billion when it announced its plans this summer, but recent market turmoil drove down stock prices and many companies’ market values.
Investors had also raised concerns about First Data’s debt levels, which will remain high even after the company uses more than $2 billion of the IPO proceeds to pay down debt.
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