Independent Bank Group IPO Up Big

Independent Bank Group (IBTX) became the first company to go public in April today.

The Texas-based bank debuted at $26 a share, the high end of its expected range. As of 2 p.m. eastern time, the stock had risen to $29.60 – a first-day increase of nearly 14%.

Independent Bank Group raised $83 million in its IPO. With 3.2 million shares sold, that gave it a $304 million market value at the time of its IPO. The stock began trading on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol IBTX.

The bank boasts 30 locations in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

The $83 million Independent Bank group raised in its IPO adds to the $7.5 billion haul initial public offerings as a whole raised in the first quarter. While the number of IPOs was down last quarter, the amount of money raised was a 29% improvement from the first quarter a year ago. Zoetis (NYSE: ZTS), a spin-off of Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), made the biggest haul, racking up $2.57 billion in its IPO — the most profitable debut since Facebook (NASDAQ: FB).

Perhaps those returns – combined with the fact that U.S. markets are at all-time highs – will convince more companies to go public in the coming months.