Lazard Limited, the investment bank headed by Bruce Wasserstein, plans to sell shares to the public for as much as $27 each, valuing the company’s parent at about $3.9 billion.

The 157-year-old bank will sell approximately 30.5 million shares in an initial offering, New York-based Lazard said yesterday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Lazard Group Incorporated, the investment bank’s parent, expects the shares to sell for between $25 and $27, raising between $761.5 million and $822.4 million, the filing says.

Mr. Wasserstein needs the money to pay off Chairman Michel David-Weill, a member of the family that founded the company, who demanded $1.62 billion for himself and companies he controls to go along with the IPO. Mr. Wasserstein is taking the bank public amid a surge in advisory work on mergers and acquisitions and a record season for earnings in the securities sector.

“The market reaction will depend on their two businesses – M&A and restructuring,” said Roy C. Smith, a former partner at Goldman, Sachs & Company who is now a professor of investment banking at New York University. “Last year wasn’t so good, but this year looks better. What does it mean for the surviving organization? It will be heavily leveraged and dependent on two businesses.”

Lazard Group’s working partners will own about 66.3 million shares in the parent company after Lazard Limited’s IPO, and IXIS Corporate & Investment Bank, a French investment firm, will own 1.9 million shares. Mr. Wasserstein and his family trust will have 1.2 million shares.

At the $26 midpoint of the IPO range, Lazard Group’s equity value would be approximately $2.6 billion. Lazard also said it will issue new debt of $650 million, bringing total debt to $1.3 billion.

The firm, founded as a dry-goods business in New Orleans in 1848, said in the filing that the IPO will help it “better align the interests of all our owners,” and “redeem membership interests in our firm held by historical partners.”

Mr. Wasserstein, who has agreed to complete the IPO by the end of 2005 or resign, plans to buy the 36% stake controlled by Mr. David-Weill and his al lies, including French investment company Eurazeo SA.

Lazard said Mr. Wasserstein and his family trust will have 11.7 million shares in Lazard Group valued at about $300 million after the IPO. He also will receive a salary of at least $4.8 million in 2005, 2006, and 2007.That’s a 60% increase from the $3 million salary he received in 2004, 2003, and 2002.

The firm also disclosed guaranteed compensation for four other senior executives: $3 million for Vice Chairman Steven Golub; $2 million for Chief Financial Officer Michael Castellano; $2.25 million for General Counsel Scott Hoffman; and $3 million for President Charles Ward.

First-quarter revenue from mergers and acquisitions rose 64 percent compared with a year earlier, the filing says. Revenue from financial restructuring rose 36%.

The firm’s capital markets business won’t be part of the public company, the filing says. That business includes equity and fixed-income sales, and trading, broking, research, and underwriting services.