HENLEY UNIT AMENDS FILING FOR STOCK OFFER

Wheelabrator Technologies Inc., a unit of Henley Group Inc. of La Jolla, has filed an amended registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission concerning its previously announced 6.9-million-share initial public stock offering.

Wheelabrator, which is based in Hampton, N.H., hopes to complete the offering by “early Fall,” a company spokesman said. The stock is expected to sell at between $15 and $17 a share, raising between $103.5 million and $117.3 million. In its initial filing with the SEC in July, Wheelabrator said it hoped individual shares would sell for as much as $20, raising $138 million.

Of the maximum 6.9 million shares to be offered, 900,000 are to cover underwriters’ overallotment, the company said.

Even after the offering, Henley Group will still be the largest Wheelabrator shareholder. If 6 million shares are sold, Henley would own 82.6% of 34.5 million shares outstanding after the offering.

The total outstanding after the offering does not include the 3.5 million shares Wheelabrator will soon sell to executives covered by its equity purchase plan, whereby Wheelabrator executives may buy stock with low-cost 90% financing provided by the company.

For the six months ended June 30, Wheelabrator reported net income of $12.2 million on revenue of $499.8 million. Those figures contrast with a net loss of $1.5 million on revenue of $370.1 million for the same period last year.

As of June 30, Wheelabrator had assets of $689.5 million, liabilities of $600.6 million and group equity of $88.9 million. A Henley spokesman attributed the company’s low equity and negative working capital in recent reporting periods to its accounting practice of transferring “excess cash balances” to the parent firm.

Proceeds from the stock offering will be used to build up working capital and for other general corporate purposes, including capital expenditures and, possibly, acquisitions.