Stadium concessions provider Aramark Corp. has selected bankers to lead an initial public offering, according to people familiar with the deal.
The Philadelphia company has tapped Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ( GS ) to arrange the offering along with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. ( JPM ), Credit Suisse Group AG ( CS ) and Morgan Stanley ( MS ), the people said. It may file initial paperwork for the IPO in early August, one of the people said, cautioning that the timing may change. Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Aramark, one of the biggest closely held companies in the U.S., was in early discussions with banks and analysts about a potential offering.
If an IPO is held, it will be Aramark's third. The company's chairman, Joseph Neubauer, led a management buyout in 1984 that was aimed at fending off a hostile takeover attempt. The then-chief executive later helped bring the company back to public ownership in 2001 before engineering its 2007 buyout with a group of private-equity firms.
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