Travelport Worldwide Ltd. (NYSE: TVPT) shares have been holding relatively strong in its initial public offering (IPO) debut. This is despite a strong market sell-off on Thursday. A total of 30 million shares were sold in this offering, and they were originally priced at $16. The company is being backed by the private equity firm Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE: BX). The underwriters for this offering were Morgan Stanley, UBS, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank.

Travelport is a travel commerce marketplace that provides distribution, technology and payment services. It connects travel providers like airlines and hotel chains with online and offline travel agencies and other travel buyers. The company processed more than $85 billion of travel spending in 2013. Travelport also has a global reach in over 170 countries that consists of travel providers, travel agencies and corporations.

Looking forward, Travelport plans to use the proceeds from this offering to reduce its indebtedness. The company was acquired by Blackstone in 2006, and Blackstone owns approximately 13% of the company.

Shortly before 2:00 p.m., the stock has traded at $16.83 — a gain of roughly 5% up from the pricing. Travelport shares entered the market at $17.69 but have backed off of highs since that time as investors decided that a private equity-backed IPO might not be the best place for new money in the market when the DJIA and S&P 500 were down well over 1%.

The trading range on the day is $16.40 to $17.70. The total volume moved on the day so far is 16.4 million, and the market cap is approximately $2 billion.

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