Prudential Raises $3 Billion In Initial Public Offering

By Trevor Thomas

December 16, 2001 at 07:00 PM

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The largest life insurance company in the United States went public Thursday with an initial public offering of stock that raised more than $3 billion.

Prudential Insurance Company of America, Inc., Newark, N.J. planned to sell 110 million shares at an estimated price of $27.50, according to company statements filed with the SEC. That would net the company a total of almost $3.03 billion.

That would make it the third biggest IPO this year, after Kraft Foods Inc., which raised $8.7 billion, and Lucent spinoff Agere Systems Inc., which raised $3.6 billion.

In early trading Thursday, the stock had climbed to $29.51 a share.

In addition to the shares sold to the public, Prudential will distribute almost 455 million shares to its 11 million policyholders, the company says.

The company also has announced it is changing its name to Prudential Financial Inc.

It reported more than $606 billion in assets under management as of June 30.

Other life insurers that have gone public recently include Principal, MetLife and John Hancock.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Life & Health/Financial Services Edition, December 17, 2001. Copyright 2001 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

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