KKR-backed Academy Sports falls 7% in Nasdaq debut

(Reuters) - Academy Sports and Outdoors Inc's shares <ASO.O> fell 7% in their in their Nasdaq debut on Friday, after the online sporting goods seller priced its initial public offering below the lower end of its indicated range.

The company raised $203.1 million in its IPO by selling 15.6 million shares.

Shares of giant KKR & Co Inc <KKR.N> backed retailer opened at $12.10, compared with the IPO price of $13 apiece, valuing the company at $1.07 billion.

Academy Sports had initially aimed to sell its shares at between $15 and $17 apiece.

The retailer's disappointing debut comes on a day when Wall Street's main indexes were trading lower as news that President Donald Trump had contracted COVID-19 stirred up political uncertainty just weeks before the election.

It also bucks the recent trend of strong appetite from investors for new listings, with 2020 on track to be the best year for IPOs since the Dotcom boom of 1999 and 2000. In a regulatory filing earlier, the company said its revenue for the first half of fiscal year 2020 was $2.74 billion, up about 19% from a year earlier. Net income in the same period more than doubled to $157.7 million. Last year, federal prosecutors said the retailer violated the law by selling an assault-style rifle and magazines to Devin Patrick Kelley, who walked into a Texas church in 2017 and opened fire on worshippers, killing 26 people and wounding 40 others. Credit Suisse, JP Morgan, KKR and BofA Securities were the lead underwriters for the IPO.

(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni)