Thursday, February 23, 2012

Ceres Rises In IPO

Thousand Oaks-based Ceres, the biotechnology firm developing specialized seed stocks for the biofuels industry, rose in its IPO on Wednesday, closing at $14.80 for the day, after rising 14 percent in its first day of trading. The firm priced its IPO on Tuesday evening at $13.00 per share, pricing lower than expected after a delay in its IPO. Ceres develops specialized seeds specifically for growing feedstock for biofuels and biochemicals.

The IPO marks the first company in Southern California to hit the markets so far this year; a number of local companies have either recently filed for an IPO, have been in registration for awhile but have not hit the market; or are rumored to be considering the markets, which cooled somewhat in the latter half of the year after a fairly early active early 2011 and 2010. Ceres was trading around $14.85 on Thursday morning. Ceres was venture backed by Artal, Warburg Pincus, Ambergate Trust, Oxford Bioscience, GIMV, Oppenheimer Growth, and Monsanto.

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