Corporate Actions: Worldwide Initial Public Offerings

Prior to a new listing on a stock exchange, a company will have an initial public offering, whereby it will offer shares to the public and/or institutions.

It is important for the back offices of investment banks to know which companies have declared their intentions of going public, so that they can set up the issue in their reference databases, whilst the front office has the possibilities of either advising on the IPO or consummating deals.

Not all companies that declare their intention of going public actually do so. They may in the interim, be taken over, fail due diligence or not achieve the valuation that they had hoped for.

Exchange Data International (EDI) monitors IPO’s on a Worldwide basis. EDI uses local Stock Exchanges as its primary source of information, along with additional secondary sources, such as International news agencies, as confirmation. EDI divides IPO’s into six categories namely Rumoured, Pending, New, Withdrawn, Postponed and once the event has taken place Historical.
Due to their nature "Rumoured" IPO's do not include security coding as these are pre-regulatory approval. When an IPO's is "Pending" EDI will track any security coding.