Swift Transportation could go public as soon as this week, in an initial public offering that some estimate could raise $1 billion.

Briefing.com predicts the IPO for the Phoenix-based company will go for $13 to $15 per share. Swift Transportation, which is changing its name from Swift Holdings Corp., will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SWFT beginning today.

A Nov. 30 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission calls for 77.4 million shares to be registered and a proposed offering price of $14. That would make the IPO worth about $1 billion. Most of that will be used to pay off debt.

It's not the first time the company has been public. In 2007, co-founder Jerry Moyes led a $2.4 billion buyout to take the country's largest truckload carrier private.

Bloomberg points out that the IPO values the trucking company at 25 percent less than it was worth when Moyes took the company private in 2007, after three years of losses.

As of Sept. 30, Swift operated a fleet of 16,200 tractors, 48,600 trailers and 4,500 intermodal containers in the United States and Mexico. The company posted a net loss of $77.1 million on total operating revenue of $2.15 billion in the nine months ended Sept. 30.

Those losses are less than 2007 and 2009, and the company says revenue for the first nine months of this year rose 12.9 percent compared to the same period last year.

Moyes, 66, co-founded Swift in 1966 with a single truck. He stepped down as chief executive officer in 2005. He is not selling any shares, according to published reports.

A Weekly Trader Extra column at Barron's says the IPO is "Not a Swift Idea." Author Andrew Bary points out that "Swift has been losing money since its 2007 leveraged buyout and still would have a substantial amount of debt and interest expense after the IPO, which could be one of the largest of the year if completed."

Bary explains that "The IPO is part of a complex series of financial actions, including the refinancing of bank loans, the repurchase of existing public bonds and the issuance of new public debt and a new bank credit facility. All this is designed to cut Swift's debt to about $1.8 billion and reduce interest expense, now running at about $240 million annually by about $100 million."