Time Warner Telecom Inc. (TWTC) has announced that its principal stockholders commenced an underwritten public offering of 27,500,000 shares of its Class A common stock. They have also earmarked an over-allotment option to purchase up to an additional 4,125,000 shares within 30 days of the underwriting.

All of the shares that are being offered are currently owned by subsidiaries of Time Warner Inc. (TWX) and by Advance Telecom Holdings Corporation and Newhouse Telecom Holdings Corporation. The company will not receive any cash proceeds from the offering.

Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Lehman Brothers Inc. and J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. are joint bookrunning managers.

Last month Deutsche Bank started TWTC as a Buy rated stock. Lehman has an Outperform rating on the shares. one point of interest is that TWTC sold 19.4 million shares back in March and Morgan Stanley was in that underwriting group, but they are not in this underwriting.

Shares of TWTC ended up $0.11 at $18.63 as of yesterday's close. Its 52-week trading range is $6.84 to $18.93.

What is interesting about this offering is that it actually has a dual function after you look at the share offering.