Morton’s IPO Tops Forecast

Morton’s Restaurant Group, a chain of company-owned steakhouses founded in Chicago almost three decades ago, raised $161 million Wednesday in an initial public offering, selling 9.465 million shares at $17 each, a banker involved in the sale said.

The stock will begin trading today under the ticker MRT on the New York Stock Exchange.

The IPO price exceeded the $14-to-$16 range that the Chicago-based company forecast in a Feb. 7 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Morton’s plans to use proceeds to repay debt.

The restaurant chain, opened in downtown Chicago by Arnie Morton and Klaus Fritsch in 1978, now owns and operates 65 U.S. restaurants in 60 cities, two in Canada and one each in Hong Kong and Singapore. The company, which says an average meal for two costs $170, also owns four high-end Italian restaurants called Bertolini’s.