Warner Music loses on disappointing IPO

Warner Music Group stocks fell 7 percent Wednesday on the debut of its Initial Public Offering. This was seen as an expression of lack of faith in an unsettled music industry by investors.

Among the factors that investors might be thinking about are the constant technological changes affecting the industry, the fact that the music industry must adjust to new ways of distributing music, and the effect of digital piracy on the industry’s bottom line.

Warner’s raised $554.2 million, selling 32.6 million shares at a price of $17. It had hoped to raise over $750 million dollars on shares selling at between $22 and $24 per share.

Additionally, in early trading on Wednesday in New York, Warner’s shares had fallen $1.25 to $15.75.

Warner executives are putting the blame on the fall in share prices to a Tuesday sell-off of media shares brought on by DreamWorks’ negative first-quarter report and on recent weaknesses in the IPO market generally.

Some analysts, though, had said last week that Warner would likely have to drop the prices of its shares below the $20 mark per share.