UPDATE 1-American Water sees IPO of 64 mln shares at $24-$26/shr
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March 31 (Reuters) - American Water Works Co Inc, a wholly owned unit of Europe's third-largest utility RWE (RWEG.DE), on Monday registered its initial public offering of 64 million shares at an estimated price of $24 to $26 per share.
The IPO is a part of RWE's plan to exit its water activities in the United States to focus on its core European electricity and gas business by divesting its ownership in American Water Works.
In an amended regulatory filing, the water and wastewater utility company said stockholder RWE Aqua Holdings, a wholly owned unit of RWE, is selling all the shares in the IPO and will continue to own 60 percent of American Water Works after the offering. Goldman, Sachs & Co, Citi, Merrill Lynch & Co, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, UBS Investment Bank, Edward Jones, Janney Montgomery Scott, Societe Generale, Wachovia Securities, Boenning & Scattergood, Cabrera Capital Markets, HSBC, Stanford Group and Williams Capital Group are underwriting the IPO.
The underwriters may buy up to an additional 9.6 million shares from the selling stockholder.
The initial market capitalization of American Water Works is $4 billion, assuming 160 million shares outstanding after the IPO and the midpoint of the estimated price range.
Voorhees, New Jersey-based American Water Works, which reported a loss of $342.9 million on revenue of $2.21 billion in 2007, said it applied for a New York Stock Exchange listing under the symbol "AWK." (Reporting by Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore; Editing by Deepak Kannan)
