AGA Medical stock falls after top investor divests shares

Shares of AGA Medical Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: AGAM) fell more than 6 percent Tuesday after its top investor decided to divest a tenth of its holdings in the Plymouth, Minn.-based medical device maker.

Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, a private equity firm and majority owner of AGA Medical, will disburse 2.4 million shares to its individual shareholders, leaving it with 21.5 million shares, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

AGA Medical stock closed Tuesday at $15.12, down $1.

The timing of the divestiture, which comes less than seven months after the company went public, raised some eyebrows in Wall Street.

Since its $199 million stock debut in late October, AGA stock has risen about 10 percent. But the IPO itself was a bit of a disappointment: The company had initially priced its stock between $19 to $21 a share and then lowered its forecast to $15 to $16 a share before settling on $14.50.

Last week, AGA Medical said it lost $21.2 million on first-quarter sales of $51.3 million compared to a loss of $6.4 million on sales of $44.4 million during the same period a year ago.