The Huntsman companies have more than 15,000 employees worldwide in six divisions: advanced materials, base chemicals, performance products, pigments, polymers and polyurethanes. Its materials are found in everything from cars, airplanes and footwear to paints, textiles and packaging products.

The clamshell-shaped container for McDonald's Big Mac sandwiches was a creation of Huntsman Container Corp. in 1974.

Last month, the Huntsman companies reported second-quarter earnings before taxes and deductions of $116.3 million, including $170.9 million in restructuring and other charges. That compared with year-earlier earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $156.8 million, including charges of $60.7 million.

But the company has been struggling with debt, which now is about $5.8 billion. Last November, the group said it would take cost-cutting actions to trim at least $200 million over 18 months, with each business segment being affected. That came on the heels of the company reporting a net loss of $88.6 million for the 2003 third quarter.

The move to sell shares has been expected since Peter Huntsman assumed control of the company in 2000.

Within months of Peter Huntsman taking over, the Huntsman companies saw their record of profitability derailed by skyrocketing energy prices that added $50 million a month to the cost of generating electricity used to fire Huntsman's chemical manufacturing plants.

The family ultimately gave up 49.9 percent of the company's equity to CSFB Global Opportunities Partners LP, a Boston-based investment fund that purchased 82 percent of Huntsman's outstanding bonds and took $1.1 billion in debt off the books. That left the Huntsman family with 50.1 percent ownership, and the family retained day-to-day operations.

Without CSFB's involvement, Peter Huntsman has said, "we would be bankrupt, no doubt about it." In comments late last year, he said he had a five- or six-year window to turn the company around and buy back the 49.9 percent from CSFB.

Huntsman is "just the latest of a continued string of companies accessing the capital markets, which they haven't really had access to for some time because the industrial economy, until the last year, has been relatively weak," said John Roberts, senior vice president and chemical equities analyst for Buckingham Research in New York. "A rising tide floats all ships."

"The industry is operating at high rates of capacity, and if we ever get a break on oil, margins will improve," said John Fields, a senior fund manager at Delaware Investments in Philadelphia, who manages $1 billion and owns Dow Chemical Co. shares. "You're looking at strong profitability here, and we haven't seen the peak yet," making now a good time for Huntsman to sell stock, Fields said.

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Contributing: Associated Press, Bloomberg News; E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com; lisa@desnews.com