Investors stocked up on shares of grocery chain Fresh Market Inc. on its first day of trading Friday.
The company's stock opened at $35 a share on the Nasdaq Composite Index, up 59% from its initial public offering price of $22. Late morning, it was trading at $31.85, up 45%. A total of 13.2 million shares were sold at a price above its expected $18 to $20 range.
In another Nasdaq debut, Primo Water Corp. jumped 15%. The supplier of bottled water dispensers offered 8.33 million shares at $12 a share.
Fresh Market is a small grocery chain—it operates 100 stores, half of which are in Florida, North Carolina and Georgia—-that focuses on higher-margin foods and services, such as imported cheeses, organic produce and on-site butchers. About two-thirds of its sales are for perishable goods.
It operates smaller stores that average a half to a third of the square footage of many supermarket chains, a tactic it says replicates a neighborhood grocery feel. It has one-third the number of stores that Whole Foods Market Inc. controls, but its gross margins, at 33%, are closer to Whole Food's 35% than to Safeway Inc.'s 28%.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: The Wall Street Journal.