On its first day on the Copenhagen stock market Friday, Novo Nordisk’s newly public IT business got off to a fast start, with shares rising by as much as 44 percent, according to Reuters.

Investors quickly bid up shares in NNIT, which had an offering price of 125 Danish kroner, or about $18—a figure analysts termed conservative, and if the underwriters exercise a 6 percent overallotment option, up to 46 percent of NNIT will trade publicly.

Novo Nordisk will retain at least 25.5 percent of the company, with holding company Novo A/S buying another 25.5 percent of shares at the offering price. Making NNIT public also frees up more than $335 million to use for other projects.

“Amongst private investors in Denmark, more than 60,000 people wanted to buy shares,” Novo CFO Jesper Brandgaard told the news service. “It’s more than three times as much in both the number and the value bid for as in all previous IPOs in Denmark in the past five years. … We’ve also seen fantastic interest amongst institutional investors.”

Source: Reuters