17/04/2017
🎗IPO (INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING 🎗
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Initial public offering (IPO) or stock market launch is a type of public offering in which shares of a company usually are sold to institutional investors that in turn, sell to the general public, on a securities exchange, for the first time. Through this process, a private company transforms into a public company. Initial public offerings are mostly used by companies to raise the expansion of capital, possibly to monetize the investments of early private investors, and to become publicly traded enterprises. A company selling shares is never required to repay the capital to its public investors. After the IPO, when shares trade freely in the open market, money passes between public investors.
A company planning an IPO typically appoints a lead manager, known as a bookrunner, to help it arrive at an appropriate price at which the shares should be issued. There are two primary ways in which the price of an IPO can be determined. Either the company, with the help of its lead managers, fixes a price ("fixed price method"), or the price can be determined through analysis of confidential investor demand data compiled by the bookrunner ("book building").
🎗EQUITY WARRANT 🎗
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A warrant in which the underlying security is a stock. That is, an equity warrant is a certificate issued with a security giving the holder the option of buying a stock at a certain strike price for a certain period of time. Equity warrants are the most common warrants. Unlike options, warrants are issued by companies during a round of financing as an added incentive to buy a security; they are not issued by individual investors or brokerages. Warrants also usually have a longer maturity.
🎗OVER THE COUNTER (OTC) 🎗
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Over-the-counter (OTC) or off-exchange trading is done directly between two parties, without any supervision of an exchange. It is contrasted with exchange trading, which occurs via exchanges. A stock exchange has the benefit of facilitating liquidity, mitigates all credit risk concerning the default of one party in the transaction, provides transparency, and maintains the current market price. In an OTC trade, the price is not necessarily published for the public.
Some companies, with Wal-Mart as one of the largest,began trading as OTC stocks and eventually upgraded to a listing on fully regulated market. By 1969 Wal-Mart Stores Inc. was incorporated. In 1972, with stores in five states, including Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Missouri, Wal-Mart began trading as over-the-counter (OTC) stocks. By 1972 Walmart had earned over US$1 billion in sales — the fastest company to ever accomplish this. In 1972 Wal-Mart was listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol WMT.
