Clearwire nets $600M in IPO, details to come…

Clearwire Corp. has finally gone public, with an opening trading price of $27.25 per share that fell to less than $25 in busy midday trading.
The company, which trades under the symbol “CLWR,” had said it planned to offer 20 million shares at prices between $23 and $25 per share in order to raise nearly $500 million. The company said Thursday it offered 24 million shares of class A common stock at $25 per share, raising $600 million.
Clearwire had filed for an initial public offering early last year, but opted to forgo the IPO after the company received a $900 million investment from Intel Corp. and Motorola Inc.
The company’s IPO monies likely will go toward its buildout and spectrum acquisition costs. Indeed, the pre-WiMAX wireless broadband provider recently agreed to spend $300 million to buy 2.5 GHz spectrum covering the southeastern United States that AT&T Inc. was forced to sell as part of the conditions for its acquisition of BellSouth Corp.
Clearwire said in year-end filings for 2006 that it offered pre-WiMAX services in 34 markets and covered an estimated 8.6 million people, with a wireless broadband customer base of more than 206,000 subscribers. The company sells its services as an alternative to cable and DSL connections, and is also testing a mobile WiMAX service that would compete with the 3G offerings from the nation’s wireless carriers.