Horizon trims
IPO price

The No. 2 ocean shipper
in Hawaii will offer fewer
shares in a lower range

Horizon Lines Inc., the No. 2 ocean shipper in Hawaii behind Matson Navigation Co., may receive less than half of what it expected from its initial public offering.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based company had anticipated raising from $234 million $265 million by pricing 15.6 million shares at $15 to $17. However, Horizon filed an amendment with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday in which it cut the shares it is offering to 12.5 million and drastically reduced the price range for its stock price to $10 to $12. Under the new parameters, Horizon would receive gross proceeds of $125 million to $150 million.

Horizon, which will trade under the ticker symbol "HRZ" on the New York Stock Exchange, said net proceeds from this offering will be approximately $122.1 million and could reach about $141.3 million if the underwriters exercise in full their option to purchase up to 1.875 million additional shares.

Underwriters are Goldman, Sachs & Co.; UBS Investment Bank; Bear, Stearns & Co.; Deutsche Bank Securites and JPMorgan.

Horizon said it will use its net proceeds to redeem portions of the 9 percent senior notes due 2012 and the 11 percent senior discount notes due 2013. In addition, it will use its net proceeds -- together with available cash from its subsidiaries -- to redeem all of its outstanding Series A preferred stock for total price of about $62.2 million.

Horizon is controlled by Castle Harland Inc., a private equity firm whose holdings include Morton's Restaurant Group Inc. Castle Harlan paid in July about $663 million to buy Horizon from the Washington, D.C.-based Carlyle Group, which had acquired Horizon 15 months earlier for $300 million.

Horizon, which entered the Hawaii-West Coast trade in 1987 as Sea-Land Service Inc., accounts for 37 percent of shipments from the mainland to Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and Puerto Rico.

The company said in its filing that it had revenue of $980.3 million in the year ended Dec. 26, 2004. Horizon said Hawaii and Guam accounted for 41 percent of its revenue last year.