Shares in Beverly Hills' RealD Rise 22% After IPO

Shares of RealD Inc., a Beverly Hills-based maker of 3-D display technologies, gained 22 percent Friday to close at $19.51. It was the company's first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

RealD develops three-dimensional visual display technologies for movie theaters and has attracted investor interest at a time of rising popularity for 3-D films. The company's 3-D movie projectors were used to show James Cameron's Avatar.

The stock, listed on the NYSE under the symbol RLD, traded 11.83 million shares after an initial public offering late Thursday. RealD initially offered 10.75 million shares with a price range of $13 to $15, but ended up selling 12.5 million shares at $16 each.

The company's applications have also been used for military, medical and space exploration purposes, including the piloting of the Mars Rover. But the company, founded in 2003, has yet to report a profit. For the year ended March 27, 2010, RealD reported an operating loss of $39.7 million on net revenue of $150 million.

In a prospectus for the stock sale filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, RealD warned that almost all of its revenue was "currently dependent upon both the number of 3-D motion pictures released and the commercial success of those 3-D motion pictures."

"We have not developed any of our own 3-D content and rely on motion picture studios producing and releasing 3-D motion pictures compatible with our RealD cinema systems," the company said in a statement. "There is no guarantee an increasing number of 3-D motion pictures will be released or that motion picture studios will continue to produce 3-D motion pictures at all."