AsiaInfo Holdings, a technical support provider for mainland Internet and telecommunications companies, soared on its first day of trade on the United States Nasdaq Stock Market on Friday, ending at US$99.5625, a 314.84 per cent premium to the offer price of $24 a share.
Investors who subscribed to the offer paid up to a third higher than the initial price range of $18 to $20 a share. The issue was 50 times oversubscribed, bankers said.
'I think the important denominator here is that every country in the world is going to be interested in those companies making [Internet] infrastructure,' Hoover's Online money editor Kenan Pollack told Reuters.
'They are laying the railroads of 100 years ago and are going to empower the rest of the networks.' 'There are not going to be any Amazon.coms until there are Ciscos,' he said, comparing the giant on-line retailer with the leading maker of equipment that powers the Internet.
AsiaInfo raised $120 million from the float, compared to the $84 million initially raised in July last year with the debut of Chinadotcom Corp on Nasdaq.
The mainland portal's issue price was $20 per share and it closed its first day of trading up 235.5 per cent at $67.10.