US No.2 life insurer raises $3.03 billion in IPO
( 2001-12-13 08:38 ) (7 )

Prudential Financial, the No. 2 U.S. life insurer, on Wednesday raised $3.03 billion in the largest initial public offering ever in the insurance business, co-lead underwriter Goldman Sachs & Co. said.

Newark, New Jersey-based Prudential, which also owns Wall Street firm Prudential Securities -- the IPO co-lead manager -- sold 110 million shares, or about 19 percent of the company, to investors at $27.50 each. The final price tag was at the midpoint of the anticipated range of $25-$30 per share.

That gives Prudential a market value of about $15.6 billion, based on about 566.3 million shares outstanding, making it the second-largest life insurer in the United States after MetLife Inc., which has a value of about $21 billion.

Prudential is also the third-largest IPO of the year after Kraft Foods Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc.'s spinoff of Agere Systems Inc.. Prudential also plans to raise $500 million through a sale of convertible units.

In the nine months ended Sept. 30, Prudential booked revenues of $20.37 billion and reported profits of $352 million.

Prudential's stock will start trading on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ``PRU''.