New York -- Fox Entertainment Group ended its first day of
trading last Wednesday at $24.50 per share -- up $2, or 9 percent, from its
initial-public-offering price of $22.50.
On the heels of an upbeat quarterly earnings report, Fox
Entertainment, the U.S. entertainment subset of News Corp., went public last week with a
bigger IPO than it had indicated earlier. News Corp. sold 124.8 million shares, or 18.6
percent of the unit -- up from the 85 million shares, or 13.4 percent, that it planned as
a minimum offering. The company originally said it would sell up to 20 percent of the
unit.
News Corp. raised $2.8 million before expenses on the
offering. The proceeds were earmarked to pay off debt.
Earlier last week, News Corp. reported that Fox
Entertainment's quarterly profit doubled in the fiscal first quarter, to $57 million
from $28 million, while revenue rose 29 percent, to $1.8 billion from $1.5 billion.
Fox Entertainment includes the 20th Century Fox movie- and
television-production studios; the Fox broadcast network; Fox News Channel; and stakes in
FX, regional-sports networks and Fox Family Channel.
