(Reuters) - Shares of private equity-owned chipmaker Freescale Semiconductor Holdings (FSL.N) rose in their stock market debut on Thursday.

The shares were at $18.76, 4.2 percent above their $18 IPO price in early trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

Freescale was taken private in 2006 in a $17.6 billion buyout by a private-equity consortium led by Blackstone Group LP (BX.N) and including Carlyle Group CYL.UL and TPG Capital LP.

The company on Wednesday sold 43.5 million shares in its IPO, but priced them at $18, below the filed range of $22 to $24, raising questions about whether investor interest in buyout-backed IPOs may be waning. Earlier this year, there was a surge of activity.

Citigroup and Deutsche Bank Securities led the underwriters on the IPO.

(Reporting by Clare Baldwin, editing by Dave Zimmerman)

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