SiliconBeat

Some might say that EMC sold its VMware software division cheap Tuesday. The 33 million shares it offered to the public for the first time at $29 each, ended the day at $51, up 76 percent, meaning that some $726 million was left on the table for others to feast on.

That spare change would have been more than enough to reimburse EMC what it paid for the Palo Alto software company in January 2004 … about $625 million.

In fact, VMware borrowed $800 million from its parent back in April so it could make a dividend payment to EMC to help it “realize the increased value of its investment in us from the time of our acquisition by EMC.”

More than half of the net proceeds from VMware’s IPO will go to paying back $350 million of that debt, and to buy the $127 million new corporate headquarters that EMC built for the company on Hillview Avenue in Palo Alto.

EMC still owns roughly 87 percent of VMware, worth about $16.6 billion at the end of the stock’s first day of trading. Oh, and by the way, EMC shares closed down 3.7 percent Tuesday, and it ended the day worth $38.5 billion, about $1.5 billion less than the day before.

You win some, you lose some.