Michaels Stores, the arts and crafts retailer owned by Blackstone Group and Bain Capital, filed to raise $500 million in an initial public offering.

Michaels didn’t specify the number of shares it plans to sell or the price range in a filing yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Large private-equity firms are under pressure to find exits for their investments as they seek to raise new funds. Fund returns, a measure the firms use to market themselves to potential investors, are negatively affected as companies mature in a fund’s portfolio past about five years, according to a report last month by PitchBook Data Inc.

Sales at Michaels rose 4 percent to $4.2 billion in the year ended Jan. 28. Profit at the company, which has almost 1,200 locations, surged 71 percent to $176 million.

A group led by Blackstone and Bain bought Michaels in a 2006 deal valued at about $6 billion.

The company had $371 million in cash and cash equivalents on its books as of year-end, and $3.4 billion in long-term debt. It employed 45,300 last year, most of them part-time.

The stock will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MIK.

JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs Group, Barclays and Deutsche Bank are managing the IPO.