Underwriters of a secondary stock offering by Realogy Holdings Corp. fully exercised their option to buy 5.25 million shares, the company said today, bringing the total offering to 40.25 million shares at $44 per share, or $1.77 billion before expenses.
Realogy will not see any of the proceeds of the secondary offering. The shares were sold by funds associated with Apollo Global Management LLC, which took the company private in 2006 and continue to hold 25.2 million shares of Realogy common stock, or 17 percent of shares outstanding.
Realogy’s initial public offering last October helped the company reduce its debt by $2.9 billion, according to a regulatory filing associated with this secondary offering, but costs associated with the IPO also dragged down its fourth quarter 2012 earnings $292 million into the red.
Despite a 10 percent annual increase in revenue, Realogy, owner of America’s largest brokerage NRT LLC and franchisors Century 21 Real Estate, Coldwell Banker Real Estate, ERA Real Estate and others, announced last week that it expects to lose up to $78 million during the first quarter, thanks largely to $89 million in interest expenses on the company’s debt.
