NEW YORK - Plaza Home Mortgage Corp., the holding company for a California thrift, issued 5 million shares of stock in an initial public offering priced at $6.50 a share.
The price was below the expected range of $8 to $10, underscoring the difficulty that mortgage companies have experienced in recent public issues.
Arcs Mortgage, a unit of Bank of New York Co., recently retreated from an initial public offering after investors would not meet its price.
Plaza is a major originator of mortgage, producing $2.8 billion of loans in the first half of the year. It sells virtually all its loans on the secondary market.
