Houlihan Lokey Inc., a Los Angeles boutique investment bank, went public Thursday with an initial stock offering priced at $21 a share.
The initial public offering was priced below the $22 to $24 a share that Houlihan Lokey had estimated might be the offering price. But the stock quickly climbed to $22.80 a share in early trading Thursday.
The deal's 10.5 million Class A common shares were sold by Houlihan Lokey's major owners -- Orix USA, a U.S. arm of the Japanese investment conglomerate Orix Corp., and the firm's executives and directors.
Current management and directors continue to control the firm mainly by holding its Class B stock, which has superior voting rights to the Class A stock being traded publicly under the ticker symbol HLI.