Corinthian Sets Offering Price at $50 a Share

Corinthian Colleges Inc.’s offering of 3 million shares of common stock was priced Thursday at $50 a share.

The Santa Ana operator of private colleges said it is selling 200,000 of the shares, and certain existing shareholders are selling 2.8 million shares. Corinthian won’t receive any proceeds from the sale of shares by shareholders.

The company has 10.3 million shares outstanding.

The managing underwriters of the offering were Credit Suisse First Boston Corp., Chase H&Q;, U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray and SunTrust Equitable Securities.

The selling shareholders have granted the underwriters a 30-day option to buy up to 450,000 shares to cover over-allotments, if any.

Corinthian’s shares rose $2.25 to $54 on the Nasdaq market.