After raising $220 million in an IPO, RE/MAX Holdings (RMAX -2.66%) celebrated its stock's first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange today. With the 10 million shares offered priced at $22, they opened trading at $26.25 a share and closed their first session at $27 each, a near 23% gain.
Company executives including Chairman and Co-Founder Dave Liniger, Vice Chair and Co-Founder Gail Liniger, and Chief Executive Officer Margaret Kelly visited the trading floor to witness the stock opening.
Source: RE/MAX Holdings.
Noting the company's 40-year history, Kelly said, "From just a single office in Denver, we've grown into a global real estate brand. And today, we're proud to enter a new era of RE/MAX history as a publicly traded company."
The real estate brokerage filed its plans to go public back in August. It anticipates netting about $194.2 million, and plans to use the proceeds to reacquire regional Re/Max franchise rights in some markets, redeem preferred membership interests, and buy back ownership stakes from existing shareholders.
RE/MAX was founded in 1973 and boasts more than 90,000 agents and a global reach of more than 90 countries.
