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An initial public offering (IPO) of 18 million shares of Class A common stock from Black Knight Financial Services, a Jacksonville, Florida-based technology, data, and analytics solutions provider for the mortgage industry, debuted Wednesday morning at the New York Stock Exchange.
Black Knight debuted the IPO at the NYSE Wednesday morning at $24.50 per share, a total of $441 million, according to a press release from the company on Tuesday. By the time trading closed at 4 p.m. eastern time Wednesday, the price of the stocks had increased by more than 10 percent up to $27.11 per share, according to the NYSE website. Click here for an up-to-the-minute update on the price.
Services offered by Black Knight include selling access to cloud platforms that handle every part of the loan process to a large network of mortgage industry professionals and selling access to mortgage servicing platforms to companies that collect mortgage debts and facilitate the foreclosure process. Black Knight, formerly known as Lender Processing Services, was purchased by title insurer Fidelity National Financial, Inc., in 2013 for $2.9 billion. Black Knight lists JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo as two of its largest clients.
Among uses for the net proceeds from the IPO will be repaying a portion of Black Knight's outstanding debt; the company plans to utilize new senior secured credit facilities to refinance the balance of the indebtedness under mirror notes and intercompany notes immediately following the IPO, therefore significantly reducing the company's interest expense. Black Knight announced net earnings of $14.5 million for Q1 2015 following a net loss of $107 million for the full year of 2014.
Among the lead underwriters for the IPO are JPMorgan Securities, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Wells Fargo Securities. The underwriters have a 30-day option to purchase an additional 2.7 million additional shares at the IPO price, minus underwriting discount and commissions, according to Black Knight.
Joint bookrunning managers are Goldman Sachs, Citigroup Global Markets, Credit Suisse Securities (USA), Deutsche Bank Securities, and SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.
The offering is expected to close on Tuesday, May 26, according to Black Knight. A spokesman for the company said they had no comment on the IPO beyond what was contained in Tuesday's press release.
