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Norwegian Cruise Lines is sailing the high seas of capitalism.
The No. 3 cruise line operator in North America popped 31 percent in its first day as a publicly traded company. The shares closed at $24.70, up from the $19 offering price set late Thursday night.
Norwegian will use part of the nearly $450 million it raised in the offering to pay some of its $2.9 billion debt load, CEO Kevin Sheehan told The Post.
Some of that debt went to building mega-cruisers like the 4,000-passenger Norwegian Breakaway, which will be the largest ship to port in New York when it is christened in May.
Norwegian currently operates 11 ships but expects to add another two or three — costing as much as $850 million to construct — over the next four or five years.
Sheehan, a native New Yorker who attended Hunter College and taught at Adelphi University before taking the helm of Norwegian, sees more smooth sailing ahead. “The management team has been together for five years and we’ve been consistently growing,” he said.
Sheehan said cruise lines are in a “sweet spot” and are viewed as a convenient and less expensive vacation option in challenging economic times.
Larger rival Carnival Corp.’s stock has risen 30 percent in the past year, while Royal Caribbean is up 35 percent.
Norwegian is 50-percent owned by private-equity firms Apollo Global Management, which holds 37.5 percent, and TPG Capital, with 12.5 percent. The firms invested in 2008.