NIQ Global Intelligence officially joined the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, but its debut didn’t go quite as planned. Shares started trading at $20.25, which was slightly below the IPO price of $21.00 set just the day before.
The company, now listed under the symbol “NIQ”, offered 50 million shares to the public as part of its initial public offering. The plan is to use the money raised to help pay down debt, specifically, amounts owed under a revolving credit facility and part of a term loan. If anything is left over, that will go toward basic business needs like working capital.
There’s also a chance even more shares will hit the market soon. The underwriters, big names like J.P. Morgan, BofA Securities, UBS, Barclays, and RBC Capital Markets, have the option to buy up to an additional 7.5 million shares over the next 30 days.
While opening below the IPO price isn’t ideal, NIQ still completed one of the year’s more significant stock listings. Now, all eyes will be on how the company performs in the weeks ahead, and whether it can win over more investors after a lukewarm start.