Zynga prices secondary offering at $12 a share
The nearly 43 million shares offered will be sold by existing stockholders, with the social-gaming company receiving none of the proceeds.
Zynga has priced its secondary stock offering at $12 a share, the social-gaming company announced this afternoon.
All the shares offered -- nearly 43 million -- will be sold by existing stockholders, and the company will not receive any proceeds from the current offering. The offering, which was announced two weeks ago in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, comes just a few months after Zynga went public and before the end of the 165-day lockout period that bans shareholders from selling any shares.
"The principal purposes of the offering are to facilitate an orderly distribution of shares and to increase the company's public float," the San Francisco-based company said in a statement. "As part of the offering, all selling stockholders, as well as all officers and directors, have agreed to lock-up agreements that extend the transfer restrictions on their shares until at least 90 days following the offering."
Float refers to the difference between a company's total outstanding shares and its restricted shares. The smaller the float, the more volatile a stock might be. Zynga's float was relatively small at its IPO, forcing the company to take this step now before shares plummet following the lockout period.
Zynga's stock price has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride for shareholders since its IPO in December. The stock went public at $10 and the share price fell the first day. After trading as low as $7.97 and as high $15.91 over the past couple of months, the stock price has oscillated between $13 and $14 for much of the past month. The stock closed at $12.24 share today, a loss of 78 cents, or nearly 6 percent.