General Maritime Goes Public, Raises $144 Million

General Maritime Corp., a crude oil shipping company, raised $144 million by selling 8 million shares in an initial public offering, the latest in a spate of energy companies to go public.

New York-based General Maritime priced shares on Tuesday at $18 each, the middle of its expected range of $17 to $19 a share. Shares are expected to begin trading on Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange under the trading symbol GMR.

The company, which operates a fleet of oil tankers in the Atlantic basin, intends to use the proceeds to reduce debt and fund operations. T

he IPO, which was underwritten by joint bookrunners Lehman Brothers and ABN Amro Rotschild, was co-managed by Jefferies & Co. It follows a series of other recent energy-related offerings seeking to whet increased investor appetite for a sector that could benefit from the Bush administration's emphasis on energy. Other recent offerings include Torch Offshore Inc., Global Power Equipment Group Inc. and Peabody Energy.