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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.
- Browse Related Terms: Floating an issue, Go public, Gross spread, Hot issue, Lock-up period, New Issue, Offering date, Offering price, Oversubscribed, Reverse merger, Secondary offering, Startup