The abbreviation IPO stands for Initial Public Offering. We call this process the IPO of a company. A previously privately run company is selling shares to the public via a stock exchange for the first time.

Companies offering shares in this way are often relatively new and small and are attempting to raise new funds and fund future growth by going public. Of course, this is not the case in all cases. Some companies are already huge at the time of their IPO. A good example of this is the IPO of the „Chinese Amazon“ Alibaba, the largest in history to date. We shall go into this in more detail in the next chapter.

Companies offering shares in this way are often relatively new and small and are attempting to raise new funds and fund future growth by going public. Of course, this is not the case in all cases. Some companies are already huge at the time of their IPO. A good example of this is the IPO of the „Chinese Amazon“ Alibaba, the largest in history to date. We shall go into this in more detail in the next chapter.