In late February 2008, all of CHC's shares were purchased by First Reserve, a US private equity company, for CAD$3.7 billion ($3.5 billion), following the latter's uninvited offer. Around this same time period, the word "Corporation" was dropped from the company's name, having been formally rebranded as "CHC Helicopter". In January 2014, the company announced its intention to raise up to $529 million through an initial public offering, the proceeds of which it mainly intended to use to paid down outstanding debts. On 16 January 2014, CHC announced an initial public offering of 31,000,000 shares at a price of $10 per share.