Ceridian HCM Holding completes largest IPO in Minnesota

Human resources software company Ceridian HCM Holding Inc. has triggered Minnesota's largest-ever initial public offering.

The Bloomington-based company on Thursday priced its initial stock at $22 a share, above the previously disclosed range of $19 to $21. It has already raised $462 million, eclipsing NRG Energy's IPO results of $423 million in May 2000.

The money raised by Ceridian is more than the eight most recent IPOs from Minnesota companies combined.

The offering far exceeded expectations. When the company filed its initial registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 26, company officials expected the offering to be around $400 million.

In the first day of trading under the ticker symbol CDAY, shares increased more than 37 percent to close at more than $30.

"It's a testament to the transformation story our company has gone through," said Paul Elliott, the president and chief operating officer who runs Ceridian with Chairman and CEO David Ossip.

The company sold 21 million shares, and a list of major New York City-based underwriters have an overallotment option to sell an additional 3.15 million shares. The company also ran a concurrent private placement of stock that contributed to the proceeds that with the overallotment total proceeds could be $630 million.

Ceridian is a global human capital management software company whose principal product, Dayforce, provides payroll, benefits and workforce-and-talent management services to more than 3,000 customers. The cloud-based platform is designed to ease the administrative work of customers and their employees.

Ceridian, a successor to Control Data Corp., was previously a publicly traded company. It went private in 2007 when it sold itself for $5.3 billion to affiliates of private equity firms Thomas H. Lee Partners and Cannae Holdings Inc. In the subsequent years, it has remade itself around the Dayforce product that Ceridian acquired in 2012.

Thomas H. Lee Partners and Cannae Investors LLC agreed to purchase $100 million of common stock in the private placement, so they will remain the largest shareholders of Ceridian and control about 80 percent of the shares.

Elliott said it is unusual for existing shareholders to reinvest alongside an IPO instead of taking money out. "That's a real testament that we feel this a really long-term story," Elliott said.

In 2017, the company had total revenue of $750.7 million, up 6.6 percent from the previous year, and had a net loss of $10.5 million and improvement over the $93 million it lost in 2016. About 60 percent of its revenue comes from its cloud-based solutions, including Dayforce, and 40 percent from other services.

Ceridian plans to use proceeds from the offering to refinance its long-term debt and for general corporate purposes. The offering also provides more liquidity for management and employees.

"We feel this really positions our balance sheet for the next level of growth," Elliott said.

Patrick Kennedy • 612-673-7926