secondary offering

Secondary Offering

An IPO in which privately held shares in a corporation are sold to the public.

Secondary Distribution

The sale of a security that has already been issued. Generally speaking, it refers to the sale of a security by a private investor (usually a corporation) to a member of the general public. It is also called a secondary offering. See also: Secondary market.

secondary offering

See secondary distribution.

Secondary offering.

The most common form of secondary offering occurs when an investor, usually a corporation, but sometimes an individual, sells a large block of stock or other securities it has been holding in its portfolio to the public.

In a sale of this kind, all the profits go to the seller rather than the company that issued the securities in the first place. The seller usually pays all the commissions.

Secondary offerings can also originate with the issuing companies themselves. In these cases, a company issues additional shares of its stock, over and above those sold in its initial public offering (IPO), or it reissues shares that were issued and have been bought up by the company over time. Reissued shares are known as Treasury stock.