Looking to pay down some of the $4 billion in debt incurred by its $15.2 billion acquisition of Nabisco, New York City-based Philip Morris Cos. late last week filed an initial public offering to raise as much as $5 billion in a partial public sale of Kraft Foods.
The IPO would be the third-largest in history behind those of AT&T Wireless and UPS. Philip Morris hasn’t disclosed how many shares it will sell or at what price, and would not confirm how large a chunk of Kraft it would spin out. (After Nabisco was added to the Kraft portfolio last summer, company officials mentioned plans to sell off 20 percent.) The world’s second-largest food company will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker symbol KFT, according to PM’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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