Posts Tagged ‘initial public offering’

Here Isn’t An Offer From Groupon: Shares Of Stock!

Saturday, January 29th, 2011

“Groupon Inc., which last month rejected a $6 billion takeover offer from Google Inc., isn’t convinced it will sell shares in an initial public offering anytime soon, said Chief Executive Officer Andrew Mason.

The biggest daily deal website’s commitment to proceeding with an IPO this year is ‘less than 100 percent, that’s for sure,’ Mason said in an interview at the Digital-Life-Design conference in Munich. ‘An IPO is something we are considering, but we’re just trying to learn more about the option at this point and understand the benefits and drawbacks.’ ”

What do you think?

Is Groupon missing an opportunity to dominate the market now that it’s turned down a $6 billion buyout from Google AND put off becoming a publicly-traded company? When was the last time you suffered from hesitating? Was hesitating ever the right thing to do?

What does it mean to take a company public?

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

When a company “goes public” it means that it has decided to expand its ownership to include shareholders from the general public. When a company first goes public it’s called an IPO, or initial public offering. Proceeds (or the money raised from the IPO) can be used to fund further growth or to reward original shareholders (a “payout”). When a company is public, it breaks itself up into shares of stock available to be bought and sold by investors. In the U.S. public companies must register with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) a government agency that regulates U.S. financial markets.  Public companies are also required to file public financial statements with the SEC every quarter.

This isn’t true for every company, though. Many companies are “privately held,” which means that only a few people own the company and benefit from its success. In other words, if someone has created a great new company and gone public, anyone can invest their money in that company and share in its success (or, let’s be honest: failures). Private companies are not required to disclose financial information to the public.

An IPO is…

Monday, October 5th, 2009

An IPO or “initial public offering” is when private companies become public by making shares of their stock available to the public for the first time. Companies do this for lots of reasons including raising money, changing owners, to have a public currency to buy other companies, and/or to create an incentive for employees. After the IPO the public can buy shares of the company as they are now publicly traded.