Avantor, a drug-laboratory equipment and chemical supplier, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange Friday, raising about $3 billion for investors with an initial public stock offering of $14 a share that closed at $14.48, writes Joseph N. DiStefano for philly.com.

It is one of the most valuable IPOs by a Philadelphia-area company in recent years.

“Clearly we have built a world class company in growing health care space and certainly current owners have done well financially,” stated one of the investors, former Rohm & Haas CEO Raj Gupta in an email to the Inquirer.

Even so, investors had hoped the stock would fetch around $19.50 a share, valuing the company at close to $7 billion.

On Thursday, Avantor cut its price target and said it would sell more shares so its investors could get paid close to what they had hoped to earn from the IPO.

VWR, a Radnor lab-glass and equipment supplier, merged with pharmaceutical supply and chemical makers to form Avantor.  Besides consolidating plants and laying off more of the company’s 12,000 workers worldwide, the hope was to boost profits by increasing sales and buying and consolidating companies.

Read more about Avantor here.

[uam_ad id=”62465″]