Sale of Stock to Help Cut DVI’s Debt : Public offering: The $15 million raised will reduce short-term obligations and give company opportunity to expand operations.

DVI Health Services Corp. said Friday that it has raised more than $15 million on Wall Street to pay off short-term debt and position itself for expansion of its outpatient operations.

The company, which also provides financing to other outpatient facilities for medical equipment, offered 1.52 million shares of common stock Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange. The offering price was $10 a share.

The stock closed Friday at $9.88, down 12 cents.

Chicago Corp. and W.I.G. Securities in San Francisco were the principal underwriters of the secondary offering, said David Higgins, DVI’s chief executive.

Higgins said that proceeds of the stock sale will help the 7-year-old firm pay down its revolving-credit accounts. The company has $40 million in short-term debt on its $60-million revolving-credit line.

He said lowering the debt will allow the company to concentrate on long-term planning for the development of new business, specifically, adding outpatient facilities.

The company now operates seven outpatient facilities in California, Georgia, Florida and Arizona.

Paying off short-term debt “is the most efficient thing we can do on the short-term basis,” Higgins said.

DVI Health Services also reported Friday that it earned $714,000, or 14 cents a share, for its third fiscal quarter, which ended March 31. That was a 51% increase from a profit of $471,000, or 10 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier.

Revenue for the latest quarter was $8.36 million, up 55% from $5.4 million a year earlier.

For the nine months ended March 31, profit was $1.81 million, up 50% from $1.22 million the year before.

Revenue for the nine months was $20.11 million, up 57% from $12.8 million.