DETROIT ? Domino’s Pizza Inc. failed to deliver big gains for investors in its initial public offering of stock, with the shares falling nearly 4 percent Tuesday in their trading debut.

The nation’s No. 2 pizza chain, behind Pizza Hut, priced 24.2 million shares in its initial public offering of stock at $14 each late Monday, raising about $339 million, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

That was lower than the $15 to $17 a share the debt-laden company had hoped to get for the shares. The stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DPZ and fell 50 cents to close at $13.50 per share, with about 15 million shares having changed hands.

Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Domino’s said it planned to use proceeds from the sale of 9.38 million of its shares to pay down $125.5 million of its about $948 million in long-term debt; $10 million to its majority owner, Bain Capital Partners VI LLC of Boston; and $1.6 million in bonuses and stock options to two senior executives.

The IPO’s remaining 14.85 million shares were being sold by Bain Capital, which had owned 65 percent of Domino’s common shares; JPMP Capital LLC of New York, which owned 7.9 percent; and founder Tom Monaghan, whose 3.5 million shares represented a 6.3-percent stake.

Steve Coomes, senior editor of pizzamarketplace.com, an online trade publication, was more optimistic about the timing of Domino’s IPO.

Bain Capital “purchased the company in 1998 and then the pizza market really hit sort of a scrum … there were serious discount wars in 1999, 2000 and 2001, and the recession of 2001 really bit into everybody,” Coomes said. “The market really dried up for 2002 and 2003. … (but) the pizza market is in a bit of a rebound.”

Bain bought a 93-percent stake in the company from Monaghan for $1 billion. Bain and Monaghan would own 43.8 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively, after the IPO, according to the SEC filing.

Greg Thomas, a restaurant industry analyst with McTevia and Associates of Eastpointe, Mich., agreed with Coomes that the IPO reflected Bain’s desire for a better return on its investment.

David Brandon, CEO of Domino's Pizza Inc., fourth from left, raises his fists after ringing the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange. He was pictured Tuesday alongside NYSE President Catherine Kinney, third from left. Domino's began its life on the NYSE Tuesday, opening trading as DPZ.

“Domino’s occupies a niche in the pizza industry” with its focus on home delivery, Thomas said. “It’s slow growth right now and I don’t see where it’s going to change. The country is pretty well saturated with pizza.”

Domino’s, however, is enjoying stable cash flow and is well positioned to withstand changes in the global economy, he said.

“If the stock price can hold they’ll be in a good position to pay down some of their debt a year, year and a half from now,” Thomas said. “If it does fall it will seek its level and kind of stay there.”

Domino’s had 7,473 franchised and company-owned stores as of March 31, two-thirds of them domestic. The company directly employs 13,300 people and, with its franchises, has a total worldwide work force of 145,000.