The lawsuit from Barnes & Noble Inc hanging over the head of Nasdaq newcomer and online bookseller Amazon.com Inc failed to stop its initial public offering soaring into the stratosphere yesterday. The company had raised the bar on its offer price following high demand over the last few days, from $12 right up to $18, which it got away at yesterday. The shares actually opened at $29.25, hit $30 at one point, before closing at $23.125, a rise of 30.6% from the $18 asking price, on a shade over 6 million shares traded – 2.5 million were offered. The offer raised about $57m for the company and valued it at about $532m. Not bad for a company who reported losses last year of $5.8m net on revenues of just $15.7m. The company doesn’t reckon the lawsuit from Barnes & Noble, which protests Amazon’s claim to be the largest bookseller in the world, will affect it materially. Amazon actually only stocks a few hundred titles, getting the rest from a local distributor.
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