Bermuda-based asset management company W.P. Stewart & Co. Ltd is set to float on the New York Stock Exchange in a deal which could raise $264 million.

The company yesterday filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States to register the common stock.

The proposed initial public offering is for approximately 11.5 million common shares with a price range for the anticipated offering expected between $20 and $23 per share.

After the offering, the selling shareholders, current and former employees, directors and other affiliates of Stewart's will own about 75 percent of the shares.

The company will be listed both on the New York Stock Exchange and the Bermuda Stock Exchange.

Selling stockholders, including WPS II, affiliated with W.P. Stewart, chairman and chief executive officer William Stewart and other associates of the company, are offering all of the shares, and therefore, Stewart's will not receive any of the proceeds from the offering.

Stewart's strategy is to seek above-average long-term returns from what it believes to be below-average risk investments -- before fees, the company's investment strategy has yielded a compound annualised return of 24 percent in the past 25 years.

In the first half of the year, Stewart's brought in revenue of $102.9 million and boasted net income of $49.2 million.

Once the launch is complete, Stewart's, which hopes to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol `WPL', could sport a potential market capitalisation of about $2.47 billion.

Incorporated in 1973, W.P. Stewart is headquartered in Bermuda in Trinity Hall in Cedar Avenue and can be found online at www.wpstewart.com.

The Stewart Group, which includes W.P. Stewart and other subsidiaries, has operations in the U.S. Europe and Asia, and currently manages in excess of $11 billion in assets for high net-worth individuals and trusts, partnerships, corporations and other entities in which high net-worth players have an interest.

Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Lazard are the managers of the offering. The public offering will be made through a prospectus which, when available, may be obtained by writing to or telephoning the underwriters at Goldman, Sachs & Co.

at 85 Broad Street, New York, NY 10004, 212-902-1172 or Lazard at 30 Rockefeller Center, New York, NY 10020, 212-632-6719.