Halliburton's KBR Rises as Much as 26% in First Day of Trading

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Halliburton's KBR Rises as Much as 26% in First Day of Trading

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Shares of KBR Inc., the engineering and government-services arm of oilfield-services provider Halliburton Co., rose as much as 26 percent in their first day of trading.

The stock jumped $3.75, or 22 percent, to $20.75 at 10 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading after going as high as $21.50. The Houston-based company sold shares for $17 each in an initial public offering yesterday, raising $473.3 million. The company builds energy projects such as liquefied-natural-gas terminals needed to meet rising demand for imported fuel.

``One of the most attractive parts of it is their historic leading market share in the construction of different aspects of LNG infrastructure,'' Robert MacKenzie, an analyst at Friedman Billings Ramsey & Co. in Arlington, Virginia, said before the IPO. ``That's a part of their backlog that has been growing.''

Such terminals allow for shipment of gas by tanker to markets in the U.S. and Europe, where domestic supplies are dwindling. MacKenzie rates Halliburton shares at ``outperform'' and doesn't own any.