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Friday’s IPOs: Networking, Biotech and Blank-Check Companies

ThinkstockIn what has been an otherwise dead week for initial public offerings (IPOs), three companies priced their shares Thursday night and began trading Friday. Here is a quick look at each firm’s opening day of trading. Arista Networks Inc. (NYSE: ANET) sold…

By Paul Ausick

Published June 6, 2014, 11:35am ET · 2 min read

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IPO

In what has been an otherwise dead week for initial public offerings (IPOs), three companies priced their shares Thursday night and began trading Friday. Here is a quick look at each firm’s opening day of trading.

Arista Networks Inc. (NYSE: ANET) sold 5.3 million shares at an IPO price of $43, above the expected range of $36 to $40. The company is a supplier of cloud-based networking hardware and software that speeds up communications between servers. At the IPO price, the company’s market cap is about $2.5 billion. The underwriters, including lead underwriters Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, have a 30-day option to purchase an additional 787,500 shares.

In an unusual twist, David Cheriton, one of the company’s co-founders and its largest stockholder, is suing Arista over a dispute over the use of software language developed by another Cheriton company, OptumSoft.

Radius Health Inc. (NASDAQ: RDUS) is a biopharmaceutical firm developing novel treatments for osteoporosis and other diseases. The company priced 6.5 million shares at $8 a share. The company had originally filed in early May to offer 5 million shares at an IPO price of $14 to $16. At the IPO price the company raised gross proceeds of $52 million, which could be increased if underwriters exercise their 30-day option to acquire an additional 975,000 shares.

W.L. Ross Holding Corp. (NASDAQ: WLRHU) is a blank-check company formed by private equity investor Wilbur L. Ross. The company is offering 43.5 million units at $10 per unit. Each unit includes one share of common stock plus one warrant to purchase another one-half share. The common stock will list separately on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol WLRH once it begins trading separately from the warrants.

Shares of Arista opened trading at $55.25, up 28%, and traded late morning at $58.02, up nearly 35%, after hitting a high of $58.23.

Radius Health opened at $8.03 and later traded up about 2% at around $8.18.

W.L. Ross Holding opened at $10.08 and traded as high as $10.14.

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Paul Ausick

Paul Ausick has been writing for 247Wallst.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.

He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.

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