Share issues at a glance
An Initial Public Offering (IPO) is the first public sale of shares, which usually coincides with the initial stock exchange listing of the company whose shares are being offered.
Preparation of a stock exchange listing involves aspects both internal and external to the company, such as preparing the accounting, creating corporate legal structures, corporate governance, compilation of the investment story, and corporate communications, as well as creating the prospectus, supporting the approval process, managing the stock exchange authorisation procedure, valuation, setting up the share issue consortium, and marketing the shares.
There are no rigid size criteria for companies planning an IPO. Even affiliation with given sector is viewed differently at different times by the capital market, depending on the current economic environment. There are criteria relating to size and to how far the company has developed, insofar as at an early stage of corporate development private equity or venture capital may be the most suitable forms of financing.
The services offered by UniCredit Bank Austria include advising, structuring and implementing share issues on the capital market. In addition, we also coordinate the external consultants involved in the stock exchange listing (e.g. auditors, lawyers) and any consortium banks involved in the placement. Likewise, we manage capital increases, share placements with existing shareholders (secondary offerings), accelerated book building (ABB) or block trades (reconfiguration of smaller groups of shares), convertible bond issues, share buyback programmes or stock exchange approvals without share placement for our customers.
- The company should generally have existed for three years and show significant growth in sales or profits.
- In the course of the IPO, capital can be raised to finance expansion or similar projects or existing shareholdings may simply be sold.
- In order to ensure sufficient liquidity of the stock in the secondary market, the free-float shareholdings after the IPO should generally represent at least 25%, and the placement volume should be more than EUR 100 million.
