Safety-Kleen Revives I.P.O. Plans

Safety-Kleen Inc., which provides auto-part cleaning services and refines used motor oil, revived its plans to go public and filed with U.S. regulators to raise up to $400 million in an IPO. The shares in the offering are being sold by the company’s stockholders. Safety-Kleen, which has about $224 million in long-term debt, said it would not receive any proceeds from the offering. Safety-Kleen first filed to go public in May 2008. Safety-Kleen is backed by private equity firms Highland Capital and Contrarian Capital.

(Reuters) – Safety-Kleen Inc, which provides auto-part cleaning services and refines used motor oil, revived its plans to go public and filed with U.S. regulators to raise up to $400 million in an IPO.

The shares in the offering are being sold by the company’s stockholders. Safety-Kleen, which has about $224 million in long-term debt, said it would not receive any proceeds from the offering.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley would underwrite the offering.

Safety-Kleen first filed to go public in May 2008, with Merrill Lynch & Co and JPMorgan listed as its underwriters. The company shelved its $350 million offering later that year, citing adverse market conditions.

Safety-Kleen, which counts private equity firms Highland Capital and Contrarian Capital among its shareholders, said it planned to list its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ‘SK.’

JPMorgan Chase & Co owns nearly 15 percent of Safety-Kleen.

The Plano, Texas-based company had a profit of $135.5 million and revenue of $1.28 billion in 2011.

A previous incarnation of Safety-Kleen, which began operating in 1963, was bought by Laidlaw Environmental Services in 1998, a year after its sales hit the $1 billion threshold.

But the company said the merger did not prove beneficial for it. Following an SEC investigation into accounting irregularities, the combined company went bankrupt in 2000.

In 2003, after shedding Laidlaw the previous year, Safety-Kleen emerged from bankruptcy.

The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.