Manning & Napier's [see profile] issued its long-awaited, initial public offering this morning on the New York Stock Exchange. The Fairport, New York-based mutual fund firm's shares (MN on the NYSE) rose from the $12 per share IPO price to $12.40 at 11:04am, a 3.33 percent bump. Yet they dipped back to $12.10 as of 3:05pm, only up 0.83 percent.

The 12.5-million-share IPO raised $150 million. What will Manning do with all that cash? Dow Jones' Lynn Cowan reports that the fund firm wants to beef up its advisor-sold small-to-mid 401(k) and its direct U.S. sales teams.

The $12 price was 20 percent below the $15 to $17 range previously anticipated by the underwriters [see MFWire.com, 11/8/2011]. That expected valuation put the whole company at about $1.4 billion. 

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