Today technology security firm FireEye sold a massive set of stock in a secondary offering, following up on its very successful IPO. The company recently purchased Mandiant for ten figures, so the capital is welcome.
A total of 14 million more shares in FireEye are now in free flotation. The company itself sold 5.6 million shares for income of $460 million. The total sale was worth more than $1 billion. The price of the offering, $82 per share, was below the company’s recent trading range. Its shares fell today to match the offering price.
That correction was hardly surprising, in other words.
Why does the FireEye offering matter to you? It shows that public markets are quite open for technology companies; FireEye exploded from an IPO price of 20 a share to north of 90. Investors like what the firm is up to.
Twitter and FireEye’s successful IPOs have held the public door open for companies like Box and Dropbox to start thinking what a nice ticker symbol might be.
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