Hospital chain HCA Inc. said Friday it plans to raise $4.6 billion in an initial public offering of common stock, nearly four years after it completed a leveraged buyout to go private.
The Nashville, Tenn., company didn't set a price for the shares or say how many it plans to sell. But it said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it expects gross proceeds of about $2.5 billion, not including any extra shares it may sell to its underwriters to cover excess demand for the offering. It will use the funds to pay down some of its $26.86 billion in debt, and for general corporate purposes.
HCA, which operates 162 hospitals and 106 surgery centers in 20 states and the United Kingdom, first went public in 1969. In 2006, a group of investors including Bain Capital, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity, took the company private in a $21-billion leveraged buyout.
The company said its first-quarter profit rose 8 percent to $388 million, from $360 million, a year earlier. Revenue rose 1.5 percent to $7.54 billion.
HCA also said its charity care and uninsured discounts jumped 43 percent to $1.58 billion in the quarter.
BofA Merrill Lynch, Citi and J.P. Morgan are leading a large group of underwriters that also includes Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank Securities, Goldman Sachs & Co., Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo.
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