Shares of discount retailer Dollar General Corp rose in their debut on the New York Stock Exchange, opening at $22, or 4.8 percent above Thursday's initial public offering price of $21.

Dollar General, which is almost entirely owned by private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co , priced shares at $21 in its initial public offering on Thursday and raised about $716 million in the IPO.

KKR, the only shareholder to offer stock in the IPO, is selling 11.4 million shares, after which it will still own 89.5 percent of the company, according to its most recent prospectus. KKR bought Dollar General for $7.3 billion in July 2007.

Dollar General, which is based in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, operates nearly 8,600 stores in the United States.

The company reported quarterly sales of $2.9 billion for the three months ended July 31, up 11.2 percent from a year earlier.

Forty minutes after the market opened on Friday, Dollar General shares were up $1.40, or 6.7 percent, at $22.40.

(Reporting by Phil Wahba and Clare Baldwin; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Tennessee Investment