Shares of Salesforce.com surged 44 per cent in its debut on Wednesday, making it a top-performing initial public offering (IPO) this year.
Intense investor interest in the company has allowed it to raise its projected pricing range twice since filing for an IPO in December.
Salesforce, which has its European headquarters in Dublin, has carved out a profitable niche of providing Web-based software designed to help companies manage their relations with customers.
This is one of the more controversial IPOs in recent history. The process was marred by a restatement of past results and a forced cool-off period after chief executive Mr Marc Benioff hyped its business to media during a quiet period mandated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The lengthened IPO process and setbacks have not hurt its popularity, and may even have boosted it because of the surge of publicity, said some analysts.
On Tuesday morning, Salesforce raised its target price to $9-$10 from $7.5-$8.5 a share. The value rose to $11 when the shares were priced on Tuesday night.
The $11 (€9.1) price makes Salesforce the 11th IPO in the US this year to come in above the high end of the initial filing range, according to Mr Richard Peterson, Thomson Financial chief market strategist.
On Wednesday morning, Salesforce rose to $15.85 before falling back to $15.32.
Mr Jamie Friedman, an analyst of Fulcrum Global Partners, said it expects the company to earn 12 cents a share in fiscal 2005 and 29 cents a share in fiscal 2006.
He is the only analyst who follows the company, according to Thomson First Call.
Based on his expected earnings for fiscal 2005, a stock price of $15.85 has put Salesforce at a price-to-earnings ratio of 132.
The debut was delayed last month after Mr Benioff allowed a New York Times reporter to shadow him for a day for a long story, which may have violated securities rules intended to keep companies from hyping their stock before their stock offerings.
Mr Benioff, who founded the company five years ago, unloaded two million shares at $8 a share just days before it filed for an IPO.
