Pizza Kitchen Shares Surge on First Day
Times Staff; Wire Reports
Wall Street got a taste of California pizza Wednesday--and liked it.
Shares of Los Angeles-based California Pizza Kitchen soared $5.25, or 35%, to $20.25 on their first day of trading on Nasdaq. The firm’s initial public offering of 5.3 million shares was priced at $15 late Tuesday. The bulk of the money raised will go to pay debt at the firm, which operates 83 CPK restaurants and 24 CPK ASAP sites domestically and abroad.
Larry Flax and Richard Rosenfield were partners in a criminal defense law firm before they started the first California Pizza Kitchen restaurant in Beverly Hills in 1985. The company was later sold to PepsiCo Inc., then divested.
The stock’s ticker: CPKI.
