Styron, the US styrenics, latex and rubber producer also known as Trinseo, has kicked off its long awaited initial public offering on the New York stock exchange.

The former Dow Chemical business with $5.3 billion in annual sales is now majority owned to nearly 90% by private equity investor Bain Capital. Dow still holds just under 7% and the company's management the remainder.

Following the targeted sale of 10,000,000 of its ordinary shares at a price of $170-190 million altogether, 21% of the company is expected to be in public hands.

Goldman, Sachs, Deutsche Bank Securities, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley are acting as joint book-running managers and the representatives of the underwriters, assisted by several other international credit institutions. The underwriters have an option to buy up to 1.5 million additional shares.

Styron's first trial balloon about launching an ipo and changing its name to Trinseo came in 2011, when it said it hoped to raise $400 million. The plans were later withdrawn.

The company has also tried to change the names of all its subsidiaries to Trinseo, but not all have made the switch. Units that have not completed their process will continue to do business as Styron until their respective name changes are complete.