On Monday of last week, Marc Andreessen broke
some big news on his blog: he’d sold his company, Opsware, to HP for $1.6
billion in cash. He was even forced to put some very small small print at the
bottom, on the advice of his lawyers.
On Tuesday of last week, Opsware rival BladeLogic revised its IPO pricing.
It was planning to go public at between $12 and $14 per share, but after looking
at the Opsware valuation, it upped that price to between $16 and $17 per share.
On Wednesday of last week, BladeLogic priced
its IPO at the top of the indicated range: $17 per share.
Late on Wednesday morning, BladeLogic’s shares started trading at about $24
apiece, and have now settled
down at the $25 level. That’s a 47% rise from the IPO price, making BladeLogic
one of the most successful IPO stories of the year, despite the atrocious market
conditions in the face of which it launched.
BladeLogic’s ticker symbol is BLOG.