Seagate Raises $870 Million in IPO

Initial public offering of 72.5 million shares sold at $12 each; shares dipped to $11.50 later in the day.

Hard-drive maker Seagate Technology LLC raised $870 million in an initial public offering of 72.5 million shares at $12 each Wednesday.

The IPO is actually the second for the Scotts Valley, Calif., company, which went public in 1998 but became private again after Mountain View, Calif.-based Veritas Software Corp. purchased its software division in 2000.

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Company officials are in a quiet period and could not comment on Seagates future product strategies, a spokesman said.

However, the company recently brought former Sun Microsystems Inc. President and COO Ed Zandar into its board of directors. Also, the company is heavily invested in research and development, as hard drives become popular in non-traditional computing devices.

For users, the IPO "means theres a sustainable interest in hardware investment, which could make a difference in the kinds of products theyre likely to see," said analyst Rob Enderle, of Giga Information Group, in Santa Clara, Calif.

Seagate shares dropped to $11.50 at 4:00 p.m. EST today. "Thats actually pretty good in this market," Enderle said.

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