Demand Media IPO to yield bumper crop for content ‘farm’

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Demand Media, pilloried by critics as a content farm, is about to harvest a bumper crop.

The Santa Monica producer of how-to articles and videos on Tuesday priced its initial public stock offering at $17 a share, above the expected range of $14 to $16 a share. The new price would give Demand Media a market capitalization of just under $1.5 billion.

Demand, whose shares will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, also hiked the number of shares sold in the IPO from 7.5 million to 8.9 million. That’s roughly 9.6% of the company.

The higher quantity and price hike reflect healthy pre-orders from investors, said Ben Holmes, an IPO analyst at MorningNotes.com.

For more on the IPO, read our article on our sister blog Money & Co.

-- Alex Pham