Microsoft went public with a $21 offering price that increased to $35.50 before the end of the day.
Some 2.5 million shares were sold the first day, raising $61 million in what some analysts referred to as “the deal of the year.”
Co-founder Bill Gates, then 30, sold $1.6 million in shares and retained a 45 percent stake worth $350 million. Microsoft stock climbed more than a hundredfold between 1986 and 1996.
