Carphone Warehouse slips below offer price

Carphone Warehouse floated only Friday, but as of Monday its shares had already slipped below their offer price.

The company, a retailer of mobile phones, floated on the London Stock Exchange at 200p, the middle of its range, raising £185m for expansion in Europe. More than 10,000 of the 11,500 people applying for shares agreed not to sell for three months in exchange for a bonus -- a measure meant to stabilise shares for the first period of trading.

Shares gained 12 percent initially, but Monday afternoon slipped as low as 190p.

However, the company's profit structure has been criticised for being too dependent on the subsidies service providers use to generate new business -- a source that is not seen as sustainable. Selling pressure was seen as coming from institutional, not retail investors.

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