Despite gloom, Visa has record 18 billion IPO

Despite the gloomy US finance climate,
investors rushed to Visa's initial public offering with 17.9 billion
dollars - the largest IPO in US history and the second largest in the
world, DPA quoted reports as saying Wednesday.
The offering was opened Tuesday, when the world's largest payment
and credit card network threw open the gates to sell 406 million
shares at 44 dollars each - above the expected 37 to 42 dollars,
Bloomberg financial news reported.
The sale raised the San-Francisco-based company's value to 42.5
billion dollars, compared to rival MasterCard's 27.6 billion dollars.
The results were larger than AT&T Wireless Group's 10.6-billion-
dollar stock offering in 2000 and rank second in the world after the
22-billion-dollar debut in 2006 of Industrial & Commercial Bank of
China Ltd, according to Bloomberg.