Yorktown’s Armstrong Energy Files For IPO

Armstrong Energy Inc. filed with U.S. regulators in October to raise up to $69 million in an initial public offering of common stock.

The St. Louis, Mo.-based company, a portfolio holding of New York-based Yorktown Partners LLC, an energy-focused shop founded in 1983, told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a preliminary prospectus that FBR and Raymond James were underwriting the IPO.

The company produces low chlorine, high sulfur thermal coal from the Illinois Basin. The filing did not reveal how many shares the company planned to sell or their expected price.

yorktown made its primary investment in Armstrong through its Yorktown VII Associates LLC fund, an $850 million pool that closed in 2006, according to the Thomson One database. That fund holds 11.6 million Armstrong shares, according to the SEC filing. Yorktown also acquired 6 million shares through its Fund VIII.

The company intends to list its common stock on the Nasdaq Global Market, but it did not reveal the symbol under which it intends to trade. Armstrong Energy expects to use proceeds from the IPO to repay its loans and borrowings. It also intends to use some of the proceeds to fund its capital expenditures relating to mining operations.

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.