Financial software house Intuit Inc launched its public offering of 9.0 million shares of common stock at $47.375 on Friday, raising a total of $426.4m. The total number of shares, all of which were sold by the company, was increased from an earlier proposal of 8.4 million. Intuit says it will use the bulk of the net proceeds of the offering to finance the previously-announced acquisition of Lacerte Software Corp for $400m in cash (CI No 3,413). The rest will go to general corporate use. Joint lead managers for the offering were Deutsche Morgan Grenfell and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, with five other banks acting as co- managers. The underwriters were granted options to purchase an additional 1.35 million shares to cover over-allotments. Intuit shares climbed $1.0625 on Friday to close at $48.5625.
