Finance History|Nasdaq MarketSite — Nine Dollars for a Commercial Listing Book

People treat CoStar Group as a Washington commercial-property data house that always printed CSGP.

The 1998 issuer was Realty Information Group, Inc., incorporated in Delaware that February to succeed a partnership.

The company's Form 10-K recorded an initial public offering on 1 July 1998 of 2,500,000 common shares at 9.00 dollars each. The underwriters took 375,000 more on 9 August.

Net proceeds were about 22.7 million dollars in 1998 currency. Trading opened on the Nasdaq National Market under RIGX.

The name became CoStar Group in 1999 and the ticker became CSGP.

The mechanism is a database company selling stock to pay for city-by-city coverage. Holders in 1998 bought printed and dial-up commercial listings, not Homes.com.

Andrew Florance's researchers still drove buildings and called brokers. The internet product came after the offering, not before it.

The pin is the public facade of Nasdaq MarketSite at 4 Times Square, the later face of the electronic market that still prints CSGP. Interior studios are not a visitor floor.

Photo: Luca Marfe, June 2015, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Nasdaq MarketSite.