(Bloomberg) The Pritzker family put Triton Container International Ltd., a Bermuda-based shipping-container company, up for sale, seeking as much as $2.5 billion, three people familiar with the matter said.

The Pritzkers hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to find a buyer for Triton, which specialises in containers that can be carried on trains, ships and trucks, they said.

The company may appeal to leveraged-buyout firms, according to the people, who were briefed on approaches Goldman made and declined to be identified because a sale has not been announced.

Any buyer of Triton Container would face a possible decline in shipping rates, said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Economic Development Corp. in Los Angeles, home to the two largest US ports.

Rates may fall after five years of increases, as growth in capacity outstrips demand, he said.

?There?s maybe a whiff of overcapacity in this industry,? Kyser said. ?If I was going to sell a business like this, I would have tried to sell it last year.?

Calls to Triton?s San Francisco corporate office weren?t returned.

Andrea Rachman, a spokeswoman for New York-based Goldman, the world?s No. 2 securities firm by market value, declined to comment.

Triton has 19 offices worldwide and operates the largest fleet of so-called marine intermodal cargo containers, according to its Web site.

Triton Container?s parent company, Triton Holdings Ltd., has other operations such as aircraft leasing. It?s unclear whether they would be included in a sale.

Triton Container?s competitors include A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S of Denmark, which has more than 1 million containers and is also the world?s largest ship owner.

Shipping lines, which carry 80 percent of the world?s trade, have been able to raise rates as US consumers? thirst for imported goods such as toys increases.

Asian shipments, led by China, rose 13 percent last year as the US posted a record trade deficit with the region.

Shipping rates rose at annual rates of eight percent to 12 percent for the past three years, according to estimates last month by the National Industrial Transportation League, a lobbyist for retailers and other shipping customers.

Lease rates, which follow container prices, are beginning to recover from a slump at the end of 2005, said Andrew Foxcroft, a consultant to Containerisation International. Price increases for raw materials such as steel and timber are spurring demand, he said.

The Pritzker family, led by Hyatt Corp. Chairman Thomas Pritzker, controls a fortune worth more than $15 billion, according to the latest Forbes magazine survey.

It includes stakes in companies such as the Marmon Group Inc. industrial conglomerate, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and TransUnion LLC, a provider of credit reporting and verification services.

Patriarch Jay Pritzker, Thomas?s father, died in 1999 after building the family fortune through investments such as the 1957 purchase of the Hyatt House hotel near the Los Angeles airport, which he parlayed into the 200-hotel Hyatt empire.

The fortune is being split among the heirs after they settled a dispute last year. Liesel Pritzker and her brother Matthew agreed to accept about $500 million each to settle claims that family members cheated them out of their inheritance.

Transportation mergers are picking up as shares of companies in the industry rise.

In the past year there have been 622 deals announced globally valued at a total of $64 billion, compared with 498 worth $38.2 billion a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The Standard and Poor?s 500 Transportation Index has risen 27 percent in the past year and is currently at a 52-week high.