Thomson Reuters
The logo of cable and mobile telecoms company Altice Group is seen during a news conference in Paris
Altice USA opened at $31.60 a share, up 5.3% from its initial public offering price of $30.The Netherlands-based cable provider acquired and merged two telecoms, Cablevision and Suddenlink Communications in order to start its US offering.
The $1.9 billion was the most amount of money raised by a telecom IPO in 20 years, according to Nick Kostov and Corrie Driebusch at the Wall Street Journal.
The IPO is the second largest IPO of 2017, falling behind only Snap's $3.9 billion IPO in March.
After the IPO, the company will have a market cap of $22 billion. It is already the fourth-largest cable provider in the US, and it is expected to use money raised in its IPO to expand even further.
Shares offered in the IPO are mostly non-voting shares, and Patrick Drahi will maintain control of the new company through a majority stake by his Netherlands-based Altice NV, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Altice USA shares trade under the ticker "ATUS."