Going Public

The act or process of a company selling stock in itself when it moves from private ownership to public trade. More generally, it refers to the actual first sale of stock to the public. Small companies looking for a new source of financing often go public, but large companies who wish to be publicly traded can do so as well. Investing in a company that is going public is generally risky because one does not know how much demand will exist for the stock after its initial offering. This risk comes from the uncertainty of the stock's resale value. See also: Publicly-traded company.

Go public.

A corporation goes public when it issues shares of its stock in the open market for the first time, in what is known as an initial public offering (IPO).

That means that at least some of the shares will be held by members of the public rather than exclusively by the investors who founded and funded the corporation initially or the current owners or management.

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References in periodicals archive

"When you go public, you are opening up for accountability and proper corporate governance system."

Family businesses need to go public

The CMA's recent updates could encourage more small and mid-cap companies to go public in 2018, leading to a rebound in IPO listings on NOMU alone.

TIME TO SHINE

That may have provided the impetus for Snap to go public. Since going public, Snap's growth concerns have persisted, with the stock currently priced around $17 a share.

The purpose of a tech company IPO has changed

Once the decision has been made to go public, there a number of requirements a business has to meet and steps to take to prepare.

PUBLIC DOMAIN

Also, if more Mississippi-based companies were growing into companies that were large enough to go public, it would indicate a growing economy.

Numbers down, and there's a reason: legislation, weak economy make it more difficult for Mississippi companies to go public

ASENIOR councillor has been criticised by political opponents for failing to go public with his personal opposition to new traffic lights which have sparked a storm of protest in a market town.

Councillor's lights opposition revealed; Anger as draft email is used by activists

KISSING, cuddling and frolicking around in the Australian sunshine, Ronan Keating and his new girlfriend go public with their romance.

Can't Keat his hands off her

The online social network, which now has more than 845 million users worldwide, announced in February that it will go public this spring, offering $5 billion worth of stock for sale to the general public.

Facebook fever: when Facebook goes public, Mark Zuckerberg will become a billionaire. What makes all your "likes" so valuable?