Development company Archstone Inc, owned by the Lehman Brothers banking group, plans to raise $3.45 billion in its planned IPO (initial public offering). As Reuters points out , in this case the placement will be the third largest in the United States this year after the IPO of the social network Facebook and the Mexican division of Banco Santander.

In addition, if successful, Archstone's IPO will be the largest in the history of American real estate companies. It is not yet known at what price the developer will place securities on the New York Stock Exchange. Analysts value the entire Archstone at $16 billion. As Bloomberg points out, the organizers of the IPO are Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase & Co. banks.

Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy in September 2008, which provoked an acute phase of the credit crisis, which then developed into an economic one. Before this, the organization was one of the largest investment banks in the United States. In March 2012, Lehman Brothers emerged from bankruptcy proceedings .

Archstone was founded in 1946. It is one of the largest companies in the American housing market; it owns about 80 thousand apartments. Lehman Brothers took control of the firm in the middle of this year, buying 26.5 percent of its shares for nearly $3 billion from Bank of America and Barclays. In the third quarter of this year, Archstone had a net loss of $176.6 million; a year earlier, for the same period, the company made a profit of $106.2 million.

Lehman Brothers unit to hold third-largest U.S. IPO