Visa Raises $17.9B in Largest US IPO
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Visa Inc. raised $17.9 billion late Tuesday to complete the largest initial public offering in U.S. history and help prop up the wobbly financial services industry.
The world's largest processor of credit and debit cards sold 406 million shares at $44 apiece to easily eclipse the previous U.S. record IPO of $10.6 billion set by AT&T Wireless eight years ago.
The IPO price topped the range of $37 to $42 per share that Visa set three weeks ago just before its executives began meeting with institutional investors and analysts to drum up interest.
If investment bankers exercise an option on another 40.6 million shares, Visa's IPO will end up raising $19.7 billion before expenses.
Visa shares, trading on under the "V" ticker symbol, are scheduled to begin trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange. The San Francisco-based company will debut with a market value of about $36 billion.
More than $10 billion of the IPO proceeds are being used to buy back some of the shares owned by the banks that have helped build Visa during the past 50 years.
The money is expected to help banks strengthen their balance sheets as they write off billions of dollars in loans that have soured amid the worst housing slump since the 1930s.
The Visa windfall will supplement a series of Federal Reserve Bank measures that have pumped billions of dollars into the banking system.
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