LONDON (Breaking Views) - Lazard's partners have a lot of work ahead of them.

Strip out the slice of the investment bank that their boss Bruce Wasserstein owns, and the average Lazard partner looks set to walk away from the upcoming IPO with shares worth just about $7 million.

That's not chump change. But compared to similar deals in the industry, it's hardly a jackpot.

For example, it is way less than the $16 million each of Greenhill's partners, excluding the eponymous founder himself, collected when they floated the advisory boutique last year. It's also a lot less than the £6.5 million ($12 million) stake the average Cazenove partner received when the UK broker flogged part of itself to JP Morgan Chase.

Lazard kicked off the final stages of its initial public offering, releasing indicative share prices and detailed ownership information on the investment banking partnership, as its partners seek to buy out fourth-generation owner David Michel-Weill.

The firm said it will offer 30.4m shares at between $25 and $27 a piece, raising as much as $821m and valuing the firm at about $2.6bn in total. It is also selling 1.9m shares to a consortium of French banks.

Lazard chief Bruce Wasserstein, and entities affiliated with him, will hold about 11.7 million of the firm's 100 million shares, making him the largest single shareholder. At the midpoint of the offering, Wasserstein's shares are worth some $304 million.

The rest of Lazard's 206 partners will divide 56 million shares, worth an aggregate of $1.46 billion at the midpoint of the offering. That equates to about $7 million apiece.

Why have Lazard's partners apparently done so badly? The simple reason is that unlike Cazenove and Greenhill, Lazard's partners are not selling an asset that have built and owned over many years. They have had to pay a very high price to buy out the old owners of the partnership holding most of the goodwill built up over generations.

As a result, the transaction has left the investment bank with a fair pile of debt. Indeed, the deal resembles a leveraged buyout more than it does a partnership going public in the style of a Greenhill -- or that mother of all Wall Street IPOs, Goldman Sachs.

The firm said it will have debt of about $1.3 billion, including $650 million that it is raising in tandem with the public offering to effect the $1.6 billion buyout of interests in the firm held by David-Weill and entities affiliated with him, including French holding company Eurazeo and a handful of former partners and their heirs

While grueling for the partners, this may represent a bright spot for Lazard's new shareholders. The partners aren't getting pats on the back for past efforts. Rather, they have been given a job in King Wasserstein's mines.

To match the accomplishments of their industry rivals, Lazard's partners will have to earn it with the sweat of their brows

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