Blackstone Group LP and Frank Quattrone are returning to the U.S. initial public offerings market after half of this year’s IPOs were postponed or delayed and stocks posted their longest slump since July.

Graham Packaging Co., owned by Blackstone, is selling shares that would give the plastic-container maker a so-called enterprise value of 9.21 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
That’s 59 percent more than the industry median. QuinStreet Inc., the Internet advertising company advised by Quattrone, will ask buyers to pay almost twice as much per dollar of earnings as the median.
The offerings by some of the best-known names on Wall Street this week come after U.S. companies from Imperial Capital Group Inc. to FriendFinder Networks Inc. shelved initial sales, while the four that completed deals cut them by an average of 23 percent as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell for four straight weeks.
(Source: Bloomberg)