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Ten months in the making, HCA's initial public offering last week didn't disappoint, especially for the shareholders who sold parts of their stakes in the company alongside the shares sold by HCA itself.
Nashville-based HCA and some of its shareholders sold 126.2 million shares at $30 a share in the third IPO in the company's 43-year history, according to an HCA news release. In its securities filings leading up to the IPO, HCA said the company and the selling shareholders were offering a total of 124 million shares expected to be priced between $27 and $30.
So the IPO was for more shares and at the top of the price range. HCA sold 87.7 million of the shares for gross proceeds of $2.63 billion, which it will use, net of the costs of the IPO, to pay down debt. The shareholders sold 38.5 million shares for gross proceeds of $1.15 billion.
Moreover, as previously disclosed, the selling shareholders--primarily the three private-equity firms that led the leveraged buyout of HCA in November 2006--could sell additional shares...