Investors hearing that Dollar General's IPO will price Thursday might be forgiven for thinking, "Isn't that already public?"

It was, not too long ago. The 70-year-old discount retail giant traded until July 2007, when equity firm KKR took it private.

Now, like recent IPOs Vitamin Shoppe (NYSE:VSI - News), Education Management (NasdaqGS:EDMC - News) and RailAmerica (NYSE:RA - News), it's returning to the market after an absence of just a few years.

These deja vu debuts are the product of two factors, says analyst Nick Einhorn of Renaissance Capital. In the middle of this decade, private equity firms were rolling in dough, letting them acquire major companies, including those with hefty valuations.

The recent bear market forced them to sit on their investments until the economy showed signs of improvement. The rise in IPOs indicates that time has come.

"Now that the window's open, a lot of (companies) are trying to refinance their debt, and certainly an IPO is a way to do that," said Einhorn.

Dollar General comes to market with a debt load of $4.1 billion, or four times EBITDA. The firm will put over $400 million of the planned $750 million in proceeds toward paying it off. But analysts say this isn't a case of private equity unloading a dead weight.

During its time off the market, Dollar General obtained new management, revamped stores, tightened operations and launched a new branding strategy. As a result, in the first half of the year same-store sales grew 11% vs. last year as overall sales rose 13% to $5.7 billion. Net income jumped fivefold to 55 cents a share.

"The company was taken private in the midst of a turnaround, and the results have improved tremendously," said Morningstar analyst Zoe Tan. "We think this IPO will be of high interest."

The recessionary environment also helps. Dollar General's peers, such as Dollar Tree (NasdaqGS:DLTR - News) and Family Dollar Stores (NYSE:FDO - News), have been posting same-store sales growth while most other retail sectors have been shrinking, says Ken Perkins, president of Retail Metrics.

The stores are cheap and tend to stock food and household items that consumers think of as necessities, he says.

"Probably this is the best segment of the retail space to IPO into," said Perkins.

Einhorn says this is a theme running through recent IPOs. After almost two years with no retail IPOs, Vitamin Shoppe successfully debuted on Oct. 28. Now Dollar General and another value-priced retailer, apparel chain Rue21, are ready to go this week. All three firms boast continuing same-store sales growth in fairly recession-resistant sectors.

The risk of a countercyclical business is that you could run into trouble when things start going better for the rest of the economy. In the pre-IPO road show, Chief Executive Richard Dreiling attacked the idea that Dollar General is strictly a recession play. He said the management team believes in the "new consumerism," which says Americans are permanently changing their free-spending ways.

Perkins says it's too early to tell. "My hope is that is the case," he said. "I think American consumers have to rebuild their balance sheets."

Tan says Dollar General might lose some customers in an upturn, but the firm's core base of low-income buyers also will have more money to spend.

Meanwhile, Dreiling has outlined an ambitious expansion plan for the company. The firm has more than 8,500 stores in 35 states, and Dreiling says it has identified some 12,000 potential new markets.

These include a large number on the Pacific Coast, where Dollar General has no locations.

Perkins says this might work, as there are signs the recession-hammered West Coast is stabilizing.

He says Dollar General might take a page from Kohl's (NYSE:KSS - News), the department-store chain that boosted its penetration in California by taking over locations that once held Mervyn's, which went bankrupt last year.