German startup incubator Rocket Internet closed at €37 per share, down 12.9% from the issue price of €42.5 per share on the day it made its debut on Frankfurt Stock Exchange's Prime Standard. The company debuted at €42.5 per share, flat from the issue price of €42.5 per share and during the day, it reached a peak of €42.5 per share and a low of €36.66. At the time of writing this article, the shares had further slid to €35.74, down 15.9% from the issue price. It's worth noting that Rocket Internet had earlier sped up (pdf) its IPO by closing the offering on October 1, 2014, following "exceptional investor demand across all points of the price range". The company had mentioned that the offering was over-subscribed in excess of ten times at the top end of the price range (€35.50 – €42.50 per share). Following this, Rocket Internet fixed the issue price at €42.50 per share, valuing the company at €6.7 billion. The incubator raised a total gross proceeds of €1.6 billion (around $2 billion) through this offering by selling 32.9 million newly issued shares (32,941,177 shares) and an over-allotment of 4.9 million shares (4,941,176 shares). Using IPO proceeds to turn into operating company Last week, Rocket Internet had mentioned that it plans to use most of its IPO proceeds to launch new businesses and provide further investment to its existing network of companies. Besides this, it also intends to invest in some of its younger companies to maintain majority stake in select younger companies over the long term. A part of…
