Why to catch a company just pre IPO
An IPO, or Initial Public Offering, is a company's first introduction to the public market. They can be quiet affairs or major events depending on the company's profile.
No matter how many headlines they generate, IPOs are an essential part of corporate funding. Here's what they are and how they work.
What Is an Initial Public Offering (IPO)?
An IPO is the process by which a private company issues its first shares of stock for public sale. This is also known as "going public."
Companies do not begin an IPO upon launch. While successful startups may go public eventually, it takes a firm time to establish the necessary business plan and market position. This is, in part, so that the firm can attract investors and in part so that it can meet many of the SEC's qualifications for an IPO.
Prior to launching an IPO a company may be held entirely by its founders or by a combination of firm principals and private shareholders. At this point the firm entirely controls its ownership structure. If it has shares, the firm's principals can restrict those shares to purchasers or investors of their choosing.
Upon launching an IPO the firm takes a portion of its ownership shares and makes them publicly accessible. Those stocks become the subject of market bidding and the firm cannot control who buys them. (This is the origin of the concept of a "hostile takeover." When a firm has placed more than 50% of its ownership on the public market it is possible for a competitor to purchase those shares even against the firm's wishes.)
An IPO is the process by which a firm places shares on the public market for the first time.
The Purpose of an IPO
The two main reasons for a firm to launch an IPO is to raise capital and to enrich prior investors. These are not unrelated.
By going public, a firm gets access to the entire world of possible investment. This can give it access to substantially more capital than most firms can get through private shareholders or venture capitalists. Typically a firm will launch in IPO when it reaches a plateau in what it can achieve through private capital and will use those funds to expand or continue growing.
In addition, the potential of a future IPO is one major incentive that fledgling firms use to attract initial investors. By selling their holdings, existing shareholders in the firm can recoup value from a successful public offering. The potential for this windfall allows young firms to attract the capital they need to operate while still small and privately held, and it rewards principals and early employees for taking a risk on an unproven firm.
How an IPO Works
An initial public offering is the process of structuring a firm's shares for sale, establishing stakeholders, and establishing regulatory compliance chiefly centered around financial disclosures and transparency. Most of this process exists to protect the general public from purchasing shares in fraudulent companies.
While the full process of an IPO involves a significant amount of both legal and accounting detail, here is the general framework:
The firm hires an underwriter, almost always an investment bank, to advise and fund the IPO. This bank will typically approach institutions and investors to create initial interest in the IPO in what is called the "road show" and will help with the disclosures and regulatory process.
The underwriter may also guarantee the initial public offering by purchasing the company's entire offering at an agreed-upon price, then selling that stock publicly itself. This is called a firm commitment. The alternative is a best efforts agreement, in which the underwriter sells the initial shares but does not provide any financial guarantees.
The company hires a third party accounting firm to conduct a complete audit of its finances.
The company, aided by its underwriter, assembles SEC registration documents. These include a prospectus, which is circulated to all potential investors, and private filings, which are for the SEC's eyes only. The registration documents include detailed financial information (including the third party audits), information on the company's management, its potential liabilities, private share ownership and its business plan.
The SEC conducts due diligence to ensure that all information in the registration documents was accurate and complete.
After the SEC approves the filing the prospectus is circulated to potential investors and a date for the IPO is set. If the company and the underwriter have not yet agreed upon an initial price or quantity of shares, they do so now.
Once these steps have been met, the stock is issued for public sale.
Profit from the sale of shares depends on the agreement between the company and its underwriter. If they made a firm commitment, then all of the money for each share sold in an IPO goes to the underwriting bank. If not, the company and its shareholders get the money directly.
During this process the company will also decide how much control it will put up for sale. Contrary to popular belief, a company does not have to post 100% of its equity during the initial public offering. It can sell as little or as much control of the firm as it chooses.
Finally, once a company has gone public it gains ongoing disclosure requirements regarding its finances, taxes, liabilities, business operations and more. This is often seen as one of the chief downsides to an IPO along with handing over control of a portion of the company. It is also the consequence of an initial public offering; once a firm is in ongoing compliance with public disclosure requirements, a subsidiary offering is far less significant.
How Do You Buy IPO Stock?
You, as an individual investor, shouldn't assume that you can get in on an IPO before its first day of trading. The purpose of an IPO is to raise an extraordinary amount of money for the company leading up to the day it goes public. So unless you happen to have millions of dollars on hand to give to the underwriting institution in exchange for some shares, that may not be in the cards for you.
However, you should still do some research of your own on the IPO and the underwriter. If you already have a brokerage account or existing relationship with the underwriting institution, contact them and find out their requirements for buying IPO shares with them. Requirements may involve not just the amount of assets you have on hand, but how active a trader you have been.
If you actually get the opportunity to buy shares of an IPO prior to its first day of trading, make sure you've done proper research on the company before buying. It's easy to get suckered in by the promise of an immediate profit if you've seen companies' shares skyrocket in price on the first day. But IPOs are some of the riskiest investments out there, and they tend to be extremely volatile and can be very unpredictable. So it is important to do your due diligence and make sure you believe this is a trustworthy company worth taking the risk on.
If you have a brokerage account, you can try and buy stock in the company when it officially goes public like you would any other company's stock. But don't go into this assuming you'll be able to buy shares at the price the underwriter set prior to it going public. With so much volatility and so many shares being exchanged on day one, stock price could potentially jump significantly by the time you buy your shares.
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