First Day Pop In Your Initial PublicOffering: Priceless

WALL STREET - (05/26/06) – MasterCard International provedthere are other things you can get with its ubiquitous card: ahealthy first-day run-up, or ‘pop’ in your initialpublic offering. Shares in the world’s second largestpayments company debuted on the New York Stock Exchange Thursdayand soared 18% on their first day of trading, to close at $46. Thecompany sold the shares at $39 each, raising about $2.4 billion,the biggest IPO in two years. Most of the proceeds from theoffering will be used to buy back shares from the company’s1,400 bank owners, leaving about 46% of the company in publichands. The biggest owners of MasterCard are Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank and HSBC; the four banks own more than 30%of the shares, according to MasterCard’s latest proxystatement.