When the CDW Corporation goes public, it will likely be worth significantly less than what its private equity owners paid in boom times six years ago.
CDW, a technology products retailer that was taken private for $7.3 billion in 2007, disclosed plans on Friday for an initial public offering. The company expects to price its stock from $20 to $23 a share, which would raise nearly $600 million at the midpoint of that range.
At that price, the entire company would be worth about $3.6 billion. The company cautioned that the information in its filing on Friday could change.
The experience of CDW, which is owned by Madison Dearborn Partners and Providence Equity Partners, is another reminder of the excesses of the buyout boom. On Thursday, HD Supply Holdings, an industrial distribution company that three private equity firms bought for $8.5 billion in 2007, disclosed plans for an I.P.O. that could value it at $4.3 billion.
And yet, amid a buoyant stock market, a number of private equity firms have moved recently to offload their holdings. SeaWorld, the theme park operator controlled by the Blackstone Group, and Quintiles Transnational, a pharmaceutical testing company owned by TPG and Bain Capital, were among companies backed by private equity to tap public markets in recent months.
CDW, which was founded in 1984, sells technology products to businesses, offering brands including Apple, Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M., Microsoft and Lenovo. The company, which is based in Vernon Hills, Ill., and first went public in 1993, has increased its focus on information technology in recent years.
The company has reported several years of sales growth under its private equity owners. Sales last year were $10.1 billion, a 5 percent increase from the year before. It has also managed to turn a profit, earning $119 million last year, compared with $17.1 million the year earlier, and years of losses before that.
CDW plans to use proceeds from its I.P.O. to reduce its debt. Most of the stock sold in the offering, 23.3 million shares, is to be offered by the company itself, while stockholders plan to sell 4.7 million shares.
The company hopes to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “CDW.â€
JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Goldman Sachs are leading the offering.
