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Italian ISP soars in debut
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October 27, 1999: 8:42 a.m. ET
Strong demand for Tiscali shares sends Net stock surging in Milan
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LONDON (CNNfn) - Shares in Italy's free Internet access pioneer Tiscali jumped 50 percent in their debut in Milan on Wednesday after being suspended earlier following excessive gains.
Tiscali shares soared 46 percent to 67.2 euros in morning trade in Italy. In pre-opening trade the shares were being quoted at nearly double their sale price of 46 euros.
Dealers had been bracing for a sharp bounce in the stock after Tiscali's initial public offering was a massive 34 times oversubscribed. Prospective investors applied for 103 million shares with only three million on offer.
At the current price, the company is valued at just over 1 billion euros ($1.08 billion). Tescali was founded by Renato Soru in 1997, using 520,000 euros in seed money.
The company entered the Italian market for long-distance calls last year, and with the use of pre-paid phone cards rapidly built up a client base of 200,000 customers.
Tescali launched its free Internet service in March, imitating the concept pioneered by U.K. ISP Freeserve, and already has some 500,000 customers.
The success of the IPO mirrors that of Freeserve, which jumped more than 40 percent on its stock market debut in London in July.
Since then, however, Freeserve has fallen back and is now trading below its offering price of 150 pence, as Internet stocks fell out of favor across Europe.
-- from staff and wire reports
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Tiscali
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