Blackstone Group announced that Hilton Worldwide has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering of its common stock. The offering is estimated at $1.25 billion, according to Bloomberg.
The hotel operator plans to use the funds raised from the IPO to pay down its debt, while Blackstone will start gaining from the billion dollars of equity that it invested in the company. Blackstone took over Hilton in 2007 for $26 billion, including debt, and the deal marked the largest buyout of a hotel company according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Morgan Stanley. Additionally, those banks along with JPMorgan Chase are helping the company refinance about $13.5 billion in debt before the stock sale.
Neither Hilton Worldwide or Blackstone revealed how many shares it will offer or at what price. If the $1.25 billion figure holds, the IPO will mark the largest on record for a lodging company.
