Visa is Now Public: Largest IPO in History

by Jordan Yerman | March 19, 2008 at 07:34 am

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Credit-Card behemoth Visa has gone public, and its stock price has doubled for those whocould afford to get in early. For all those using online trading services, they could put Visa on their Visa card.

On Tuesday, the company completed the biggest initial public stock offering in U.S. history. At $44 a share, the IPO [Initial Public Offering] raised nearly $18 billion.

When the stock began trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange, the price jumped nearly 50 percent higher.

"We operate in a large global market undergoing a significant shift from cash and check to electronic payments. We believe Visa is well positioned to build upon our past success and take advantage of this migration to electronic payments," Joseph Saunders, Chairman and CEO of Visa said in a prepared statement Wednesday.

Translation: "We bank the cash like Brinks, baby, one-two, check it: thoroughly respected by the [Wall] street movers!" - Ice T

Visa buyers paid a whopping $17.9 billion, or $44 a share, when the company priced its initial public offering Tuesday evening.

The number punctuated a Wall Street comeback that included another Federal Reserve rate cut, surprisingly strong earnings results from Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, and a 420-point spike in the Dow, its largest one-day point gain in five years.