Potbelly Up Triple Digits On Its First Day of Trading (PBPB)

Friday is the day of Potbelly PBPB! Potbelly became the newest publicly traded company Friday and if the day’s gains hold, it will be the best performing first day for an IPO this year.

In its original filing, Potbelly set its expected range at $9 to $11 but on Wednesday, it raised it to $12-$13. The final price was 7.5 million shares at $14 each.

The stock opened for trading at 10:12 a.m. in New York and shot up to $31.28. By midday trading Friday, it sat at $32.94—a 135 percent gain from its open and 266 percent higher from the low end of its original pricing.

Related: Twitter Publicly Files S-1; Here is Everything You Need To Know

Never heard of Potbelly? It began in 1977 as an antiques shop that provided sandwiches and desserts to boost sales. Revenue from the 280 company-operated restaurants was $146.9 million in the first half of 2013—a year over year increase of 12 percent, according to the company’s filing. At the mid-point of the boosted price range, the company is valued at $350 million.

Potbelly’s success follows another successful restaurant IPO from 2013. Noodles & Co. NDLS was the first restaurant IPO of the year. It doubled on its first day of trading and now trades 139 percent higher than its June IPO price. The stock is up about 1.5 percent Friday on the back of the Potbelly strength.

Finally, let’s answer the question on the minds of everybody (or at least one person) who is familiar with this story. Potbelly screams pig so why isn’t the symbol OINK?

Because that symbol belongs to Tianli Agritech OINK, a $13 million Chinese company that breeds and raises pigs for Chinese consumption.

Twitter also released its IPO filing. It’s for $1 billion, it will trade under the symbol, ‘TWTR’, has a ton of major Wall Street underwriters, the company isn’t profitable, and it will be hottest thing since Facebook FB.

Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Tim Parker had no position in any of the mentioned securities.

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Posted In: NewsIPOsFacebookNoodles & CoPotbellySmall capsTianli Agritech
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