Conditional share trading got underway today valuing the house builder at £553m, with the firm moving into open trading on 18 February,
Stephen Stone, Crest’s chief executive, and Patrick Bergin, finance director have spent the last two weeks drumming up support to return the house builder to the stock market.
Stone said: “We are delighted that our initial public offering has been successful and there has been strong interest from investors.
“This is the first significant IPO of 2013, which bodes well for our industry and the wider market. Having spent 39 of our 50 years as a listed company, we look forward to re-joining the public markets.”
The offer is expected to raise £224.9m, with Crest raising £56m from selling new stock while existing shareholders, including Deutsche Bank and Varde Partners, will sell £168.9m of stock.
The house builder said it now aimed to return to selling 2,500 units annually within three to four years.
It holds a short term land bank of nine years supply at present building rates of 16,959 plots on 72 sites.
Scottish entrepreneur Tom Hunter and mortgage lender HBOS took the firm private 2007.
But the house builder was hit hard by the slump in the UK housing market after the credit crunch.
After a series of deals last year, US investment fund Varde Partners bought the business as a majority shareholder.