Market rich with IPOs this week

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- IPOs are back in style, and private owners are putting some of their biggest names up on the block.

This week markets will see new share offerings from several companies that are kings of their respective industries. Hertz, the world's largest rental-car agency, Nymex Holdings, the main energy marketplace in the United States, and KBR, the biggest private contractor in Iraq, are all slated for IPOs.

If the 11 IPOs this week are successful, they will raise a total of $3.18 billion, which would make it the second-largest IPO week this year.

The $37.3 billion raised in offerings this year puts it on pace to break last year's total of $40.4 billion, making company management more inclined to take companies public.

If the 11 IPOs this week are successful, they will raise a total of $3.18 billion, according to data tracker Dealogic, which would make it the next-to-largest IPO week this year by value, second only to the week in late May when MasterCard launched its massive offering.

KBR (formerly Kellogg Brown & Root) is the Halliburton (Charts) unit that handles government-contracted construction and has seen a revenue spike from the Iraq war. It has filed to sell around 28 million shares for $15 to $17 dollars each on Tuesday.

Hertz, which was purchased less than a year ago by three private investment companies, will be seeking to raise by far the largest amount of the week - $1.59 billion. Its owners, Clayton Dubilier & Rice, the Carlyle Group and Merrill Lynch (Charts), bought the company from Ford (Charts) for $15 billion last December. Shares will sell on Wednesday for $16 to $18 apiece.

That price would make it the second-largest IPO this year after MasterCard's (Charts) successful $2.6 billion offering in May.

Nymex, which operates the New York Mercantile Exchange where commodity futures contracts are traded, is looking to raise $337 million. The company has filed to sell nearly 6.5 million shares between $48 and $52 on Thursday.

There will be several smaller IPOs for energy companies this week. Oil developer Venoco is looking to raise more than $250 million. Natural gas exploration company Constellation Energy Partners is looking to raise nearly $100 million, and Phoenix-based solar panel maker First Solar is looking to raise $330 million.

Other companies trying to raise money include Hansen Medical, Emergent BioSolutions, Allot Communications, Rosetta Genomics and Restaurant Acquisition Partners.

It is difficult for individual investors to get into IPOs, as investment banks typically sell the offering to massive institutional clients at the opening price. Only investors that have accounts at one of the investment banks that conduct the IPO have a chance of grabbing shares at their opening price.

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