Dow Jones Newswires | Accretive Health Inc.’s initial public offering of at least 10 million
shares priced at $12 each, making it the second company Wednesday to
price its IPO well below the expected range.

The Chicago-based hospital-billing manager, which originally
anticipated the share pricing between $14 and $16, also cut the size of
the offering from 13.3 million shares. It had said it would sell half
the original share amount, with current shareholders selling the rest.

Earlier Wednesday, online advertising agency ReachLocal Inc.’s initial public offering priced at $13 each Wednesday, far below the expected price range of $17 to $19. With broader market volatility, most recent U.S. IPOs have traded down in their debuts, and some companies have delayed going public. The deals that fared the best were the ones that slashed their prices to fire-sale levels.

Accretive Health shares will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AH. After the offering, the company will have roughly 80 million shares outstanding.

Accretive, which aims to help health-care providers maximize revenue and profit through such means as managing back-office operations and working with health insurers, plans to use proceeds from the IPO for acquisitions and expansion.

For the first quarter, it swung to a profit of $314,000 from a loss of $638,000. Revenue grew 12 percent to $125.9 million.