Friday IPOs: One’s Hot, the Other’s Not

Nimble Storage, a maker of flash-optimized hybrid data storage products, priced 8 million shares at $21, above its expected range of $18 to $20 a share, raising about $168 million. The underwriters have a 30-day overallotment option on 1.2 million additional shares, which would raise Nimble’s proceeds to around $184 million. The company plans to use its net proceeds from the IPO for general corporate purposes. The total number of outstanding shares after the IPO is about 71.5 million, setting Nimble’s market cap at about $1.5 billion.

The company does have its work cut out for it, attacking a sector dominated by names like EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC), NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP), Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) and Dell. Nimble noted in its Form S-1 filing that NetApp has sued the company and some of its employees for violating NetApp’s proprietary rights. Nimble’s CEO was a senior vice-president at NetApp before he left in 2008 to join another firm.

Shares of Nimble were up more than 49% at $31.19 shortly before noon on Friday.

Cheniere Holdings issued 36 million shares of stock it its IPO, at a price of $20 a share. The amount of stock issued was boosted from 30 million when the IPO pricing was announced Thursday night. Underwriters have a 30-day option on an additional 5.4 million shares.

Cheniere Holdings’ sole purpose is to be a repository for the Cheniere Energy Inc.’s (NYSEMKT: LNG) holdings in Cheniere Energy Partners L.P. (NYSEMKT: CQP). Cheniere Energy ultimately will receive all the proceeds from the IPO.

Shares of Cheniere Holdings were trading at $19.40 before noon.