NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- British car-sales platform Auto Trader Group plc raced onto the London market on Thursday, March 19, with an initial public offering that valued the company's stock at £2.35 million ($3.49 billion), then peaked at £2.73 billion in early conditional trading.

The IPO is believed to be Britain's biggest private equity-backed stock market listing  and appeared to vindicate the decision by the online publisher's current private equity owner, Apax Partners LLP, to press ahead with a float without pursuing a formal sale process at the same time.

The IPO proceeded despite talk last month of a possible pre-emptive offer at £2 billion from U.S. private equity house Hellman & Friedman LLC.

The offer priced at 235 pence a share, below the top of the initial 200 pence to 250 pence bookbuilding range, and included 590 million new and existing shares. The shares leveled off at about 269.5 pence in early afternoon trading.

Apax, which owns the company through two holding vehicles in its Europe Fund VII, will receive gross proceeds of about £926.2 from the IPO. Apax can also expect up to £208 million more from an option to sell additional shares, to be handled by Deutsche Bank AG.

The company itself is raising about £437 million of net proceeds from a primary offering, after deducting fees and expenses of £23.3 million. It will use the money, alongside new bank loans and existing cash, to repay all its existing junior and senior debt.

Apax bought the 50% it did not already own of what was formerly known as Trader Media Group Ltd. from newspaper publishing group Guardian Media Group Ltd. early last year. It paid Guardian Media Group a reported £600 million. The private equity firm hired Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank AG late last year to take Auto Trader public.

Peter Luck, James Fleming and Antonin Baladi of Bank of America Merrill Lynch are acting as joint global coordinators and joint bookrunners, while Simon Gorringe, Lorcan O'Shea and Alexis Maskell of Deutsche Bank are acting as joing global coordinators, joint bookrunners and sponsor. Hugo Baring and James Taylor of JPMorgan Cazenove Ltd. and Henrik Gobel and Dominique Cahu of Morgan Stanley are also acting as joint bookrunners. Lorna Tilbian and Alex Ham of Numis Securities Ltd. are lead managers.

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