Initial Public Offerings

Blackstone Group, an investment firm known for taking huge public companies into private ownership, filed Thursday to bring part of the firm public in an offering worth as much as $4 billion. Investors who buy into the deal would get a piece of the management company. They wouldn't be participating directly in the company's potentially lucrative buyout funds.

U.S. companies backed by venture capital, including Craig McCaw's Clearwire Corp., raised $2.09 billion through initial public offerings in the first quarter, four times as much as in the same period last year. Seventeen such companies went public in the quarter, according to data released Monday by the Arlington, Va.-based National Venture Capital Assn. and Thomson Financial. The $600-million IPO last month by Clearwire, an unprofitable wireless-Internet company, was the biggest.

Movie theater operator Cinemark Holdings Inc. on Monday set the terms of its pending initial public offering at 28 million shares with an estimated price range of $17 to $19 a share. The Plano, Texas-based company will offer about 13.89 million shares, and the selling stockholders will offer about 14.11 million shares, according to an amended prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The selling stockholders have granted the underwriters an option to buy as many as 2.

MetroPCS Communications Inc., a mobile-phone company that sells flat-rate calling plans in metropolitan areas, raised $1.15 billion in the biggest initial stock sale of 2007. The Dallas-based company sold 50 million shares for $23 each. The price was more than the $19-to-$21 range it had predicted. The stock will begin trading today under the ticker "PCS" on the New York Stock Exchange. The offering is being managed by Bear Stearns & Co., Banc of America Securities, Merrill Lynch & Co.

An initial public offering from movie theater operator Cinemark Holdings Inc. raised $532 million Monday, at the top of the range the company expected. That might set a good tone for Cinemark's rival, AMC Entertainment Inc., which hopes to raise $800 million in a stock sale next month. The stock offerings come ahead of what's expected to be a strong summer film schedule, thanks to such releases as Sony Corp.'s "Spider-Man 3" and Walt Disney Co.'s "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End."

Leon Black, founder of Apollo Management, said executives of the New York-based buyout firm were examining whether to sell shares to the public, a step being taken by rival Blackstone Group. "We're looking at this, as is every other private equity fund," Black, 55, said Tuesday during a panel discussion at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills. Any setback to equity markets, trading at record highs, would probably come from a geopolitical crisis, he said.

Virgin Mobile USA Inc., a joint venture of Richard Branson's Virgin Group Ltd. and Sprint Nextel Corp., filed Tuesday for an initial public offering. Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and Banc of America Securities are managing the sale, Virgin Mobile USA said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

As Hollywood gears up for an expected blockbuster summer season, two of the biggest movie theater chains are offering a rare double feature: themselves. In an initial public offering last week, exhibitor Cinemark Holdings Inc. sold shares worth $532 million. AMC Entertainment Inc. plans to launch an even bigger IPO this week, estimated at as much as $789 million.

Sometimes the show doesn't go on. AMC Entertainment Inc. yanked its planned $789-million initial public offering from the stock market Thursday rather than cut the proposed share price in response to tepid investor demand at its asking price, analysts said. It was the largest IPO to be scuttled this year, and the cancellation came on the heels of a chilly reception for newly public rival Cinemark Holdings Inc.

In a relatively rare occurrence, the ranks of Los Angeles' multibillion-dollar public companies grew by one this week. Aecom Technology Corp., a global engineering services and construction-management company, went public at $20 a share Wednesday. The stock gained $1.10 on Thursday and 75 cents on Friday, closing the week at $21.85 on the New York Stock Exchange and giving the company a market value of $2 billion. Aecom, based in downtown L.A.