Update: Exa IPO a done deal

Earlier this week, I blogged about the imminent initial public offering of Exa shares on the NASDAQ. Well, the IPO happened, but probably not the way the company expected. Initial filings showed that Exa was looking for $11 to $13 per share, but the prospectus file with the SEC today said that it had agreed on $10 per share. This works out to a total of $62.5 million raised in the IPO. According to the prospectus, Exa gets $38.8 million (before expenses), and the selling shareholders get $19.4 million. Underwriting discounts and commission ate up the remaining $4.4 million. Once trading started, it was brisk. As far as I could tell, there were none of the glitches that affected Facebook’s IPO last month, but investors seemed to trade in small blocks — not what I would have expected if there was huge interest in the offering. That’s not to say that no one noticed the IPO. Nearly 1/3 of the volume of shares offered in the IPO changed hands today, sending the price up as high as $10.25/share but ultimately closing down 2% at $9.80, on a day when the NASDAQ overall fell just under 1%. That’s a lot of churn for little gain. Exa’s fiscal year ends January 31, so the first time we’ll hear from management about its results will be later this summer, when they report on the fiscal second quarter. As @Symscape pointed out on Twitter, Exa is the only pure-play CFD company that’s publicly traded, bringing a whole new meaning to “owning CFD”. Cool, no?