Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings is setting sail into life as a newly public company in good stead.
The cruise ship operator has sold shares in itself at $19 apiece, a person briefed on the matter said on Thursday, reaping about $446.5 million in proceeds. Norwegian’s underwriters had expected to sell the company’s stock at between $16 and $18 a share.
At that price, the company is valued at about $3.8 billion. It will begin trading on the Nasdaq stock market on Friday under the ticker symbol “NCLH.â€
Norwegian expects to use proceeds from the offering to pay down some of the debt taken on during its debt load, which totaled $2.9 billion as of Sept. 30.
In January 2008, Genting, a cruise operator based in Hong Kong, sold 50 percent of the company to two buyout firms, Apollo Global Management and TPG Capital. After the offering, the three shareholders would have voting control over about 88 percent of the newly public company, according to the prospectus.
Norwegian’s ofering was led by UBS and Barclays, with Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase ser! ving as additional underwriters.
