Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. announced plans today to sell up to 6.1 million shares of common stock to pay for capital improvements at its utility subsidiary and to repay debt.

If demand for the shares is sufficient HEI has the option of selling an additional 900,000 shares, bringing the total offering to 7 million shares, the officials said.

J.P. Morgan Securities and Morgan Stanley & Co are managing the stock offering.

The announcement was made after the market closed today. At today’s closing price of $27.27 a share the sale of  6.1 million shares would raise $166 million  for HEI before expenses are factored in.

HEI had 98.5 million shares outstanding at the end of trading Monday. The sale of 6.1 million shares would bring total shares outstanding to 104.5 million.