Door and window maker Jeld-Wen began trading Friday on the New York Stock Exchange, pricing its initial public offering at $23 a share. That’s at the high end of a range the company set last week.
Investors welcomed Jeld-Wen to the markets, bidding up the stock 13.6 percent to close at $26.12. After expenses, the onetime Oregon-based company stands to raise around $475 million in the sale. Jeld-Wen has indicated it plans to use $375 million of the proceeds to pay down debt, pumping the remainder back into the business.
Once Oregon’s largest privately held company, Jeld-Wen was facing bankruptcy in 2011 as demand for its products declined in the aftermath of the housing crisis. So it sold a little more than half the business to a Canadian investment firm called Onex Corp. for $864 million.
Jeld-Wen recorded sales of $3.2 billion and a loss of $238 million in 2011. In 2015, it posted revenues of $3.4 billion and a $91 million profit, according to the IPO filing.
In 2015, Onex moved Jeld-Wen’s headquarters from its longtime home in Klamath Falls to new offices in North Carolina. The company retains a substantial presence in Klamath Falls.
