Sandwich shop chain Potbelly Corp. (NASDAQ: PBPB) held its initial public offering (IPO) Friday morning, selling 7.5 million shares at $14 a share. While the offering price is well above the original price range of $9 to $11, and higher than the revised price range of $12 to $13, shares opened at $28.66 and shot up more than 125% to top $31 after the first few minutes of trading.
The company sold some 7,362,166 shares of its common stock, and selling stockholders are selling the remaining IPO shares. Potbelly will not receive any sale proceeds from the shares sold by the selling stockholders. The underwriters, which include Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, R.W. Baird, William Blair and Piper Jaffray, have a 30-day option to purchase another 1.125 million shares.
As of September 23, 2013, Potbelly had a domestic base of 295 shops in 18 states and the District of Columbia, for a 13% increase over the past 12 months. Of these, the company operated 288 shops and franchisees operated only seven shops. In addition, there are 12 franchised shops in the Middle East.
At last check, shares were up more than 130% at $32.25. As of 10:30 a.m., we have already seen 8 million shares trade hands. Here was our company comment on Twitter:
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