Made-for-TV-movie firm RHI gets less than hoped in IPO

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No Emmy for this deal: TV-miniseries kingpin RHI Entertainment Inc. priced its initial public stock offering late Tuesday at $14 a share, below the $16-to-$18 range the company had hoped to get.

RHI, based in New York, is the production house of the Halmi family -- legendary producer Robert Halmi Sr. and son Robert Jr.

RHI was a public firm in the early 1990s until it was bought out by Hallmark Cards in 1994. The Halmis stayed on board under Hallmark’s wing, producing a slew of content for the Hallmark Channel and for other outlets.

They and other investors then bought the firm back from Hallmark in a leveraged buyout in January 2006, with Robert Jr. running the newly independent business. The buyout set the scene for the stock IPO: The Halmis needed capital to pare back the debt from the LBO.

But debt-reduction IPOs often fail to get investors excited. RHI had to settle for less than it wanted.

The company had hoped to raise as much as $225 million by selling 12.5 million shares at $18. Instead, the underwriters of the deal (led by JPMorgan Securities) had to cut the price to $14, although the number of shares sold was boosted to 13.5 million. Gross proceeds: $189 million.

This is no Oscar mill, but RHI claimed nearly half the market for TV miniseries from 2000 to 2007, including ‘Arabian Nights,’ ‘Dinotopia’ and last year’s ‘Tin Man’ on the Sci-Fi channel. Its made-for-TV flicks have included ‘Moby Dick’ and ‘Killer Wave.’

The stock is expected to begin trading on Nasdaq on Wednesday under the ticker symbol RHIE.