UPDATE 1-Berry Plastics to be worth up to $2 bln after IPO

* To sell 29.4 mln shares at $16-$18 each, raising up to $529 mln

* Company worth $2 bln if shares sell at top of range

* IPO scheduled to price on Oct. 3 - underwriter

* Shares to list on NYSE under symbol "BERY"

Sept 19 (Reuters) - Berry Plastics Group Inc said it expects to price its initial public offering at between $16 and $18 per share, which will value the plastic container maker backed by Apollo Global Management LLC at up to $2 billion.

The sale of shares worth up to $529 million at the top of the projected range will make Berry Plastics the latest of a string of private equity-backed companies going public, including Apollo's upcoming sale of real estate broker Domus Holdings Corp.

In an amended filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Berry Plastics said it would sell all 29.4 million shares in the offering.

Apollo Management and Graham Partners acquired Berry Plastics for $2.25 billion in 2006 from Goldman Sachs Capital Partners and JP Morgan Partners.

Following the offering, Apollo Funds will own about 53.5 percent of the company, while Graham Berry Holdings will have a 5 percent stake, Berry Plastics said in the filing.

The company has more than 13,000 customers and recorded a net loss of $212 million on pro forma net sales of $4.8 billion for the year ended June 30, according to the filing.

It had filed with U.S. regulators in March to raise up to $500 million in its IPO.

Berry Plastics intends to use $468 million of the IPO proceeds to repay debt, it said in the filing. It had total debts of $4.58 billion as of June 30.

The company intends to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "BERY." The IPO will be priced on Oct. 3 and is expected to begin trading a day later, an underwriter told Reuters.

BofA Merrill Lynch and Citigroup are acting as representatives to the underwriters for the offering. Other managers for the deal include Barclays and Deutsche Bank Securities.

The amended IPO filing can be viewed at: