Wilmington-based PPD Inc. has announced the pricing of a secondary offering of shares of its common stock, according to a news release.

The firm is offering 38 million shares of its stock at a public price point of $32.25 per share, stated the release.

The underwritten public offering is by certain stockholders of the firm, including stockholders affiliated with private equity firms Hellman & Friedman LLC and The Carlyle Group Inc., the affiliates of which acquired PPD in 2011 and turned it into a private company.

PPD, a global contract research organization, released its initial public offering in February, raising more than $1.6 billion. The company closed Wednesday at $32.25.

The secondary offering is expected to close Sept. 21, subject to customary closing conditions, officials said. 

The selling stockholders granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 5,700,000 additional shares of the tock at the public offering price less the underwriting discount, stated the release.

"The Company is not selling any shares of common stock in the offering, will not receive any of the proceeds from the offering and will bear the costs associated with the sale of such shares by the selling stockholders, other than underwriting discounts and commissions," stated the release. "The offering is being made through an underwriting group led by Morgan Stanley, Barclays, J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, who are acting as lead bookrunning managers, BofA Securities, Deutsche Bank Securities, Evercore ISI, HSBC and Mizuho Securities, who are acting as joint bookrunning managers, and Baird, William Blair and Drexel Hamilton, who are acting as co-managers.

"A registration statement on Form S-1, including a prospectus, relating to these securities has been declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission."

The offering of these securities may be made only by means of a prospectus, stated the release.