Angry Birds maker Rovio's shares in high-flying debut

[HELSINKI] Angry Birds maker Rovio Entertainment's shares got off to a flying start on the Finnish firm's stock market debut.

Rovio shares were trading at 12.11 euros by 0814 GMT on Friday, up 5.3 per cent from the final price of 11.50 euros in initial public offering (IPO) in Helsinki.

"There seems to be initial demand for it. But given that the IPO was multiple times oversubscribed, the reaction is not too dramatic," analyst Atte Riikola at research firm Inderes said.

Rovio's market valuation of 950 million euros (S$1.52 billion), looked high based on Rovio's historical profit, Riikola added.

"Profit growth is priced in, so they need to keep up the good performance which they had in the first half of the year."

REUTERS