Pinnacle Foods IPO Closes Out First Quarter

Pinnacle Foods’ IPO debuted at $20 a share yesterday, closing out a solid month and an even better first quarter for initial public offerings.
Eleven companies went public in March, bringing the Q1 IPO tally to 31. That trails last year’s first-quarter total of 42, and is a tick below the 2011 total (32). However, it’s still the third-busiest first quarter for IPOs since 2007.
Pinnacle Foods (PF), a leading frozen foods company, closed out the quarter with a bang. The stock was up 11% in its IPO despite pricing at the high end of its expected range, and shares haven’t slowed a bit in Day 2. The stock, listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “PF”, had climbed another 13% as of 11 a.m. eastern time.
Part of the appeal of the Pinnacle Foods IPO is the promise of a dividend. The company intends to offer a quarterly dividend of 18 cents per share – a 3.2% yield at its current share price of $22.50 a share.
Two more IPOs are set to price next week: Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technology, a regenerative medicine company that developed a synthetic replacement trachea, and Independent Bank Group, a North Texas-based bank with 30 chains.