An IPO is the “initial public offering” which is when a company begins to offer their stock to the public. With the technological rush that has been happening, big companies are popping up left and right and getting so big that they do actually start selling their stock publicly and have to hold and IPO. When a company goes public, it’s interesting to see just how quickly people will jump on board and start gobbling up the company’s stock, so here are the five biggest IPOs in history.
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5. UPS – $5.5 Billion
UPS held their IPO on November 9th back in 1999. When Unified Parcel Services went live people knew how important the company would be and invested a total of $5.5 billion into the company. UPS is still one of the top delivery services out there and the field isn’t really expanding so they should continue to sit at the top.
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4. Kraft Foods – $8.7 Billion
Kraft foods went public on June 12th 2001. The company has a wide variety of food products, mainly known for their classic blue boxed Kraft macaroni & cheese. Kraft has built themselves up to be a dominant player in the food market that is always selling across the nation. The company was able to raise $8.7 billion from their IPO and is still delivering.
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3. General Motors – $15.8 Billion
General Motors has been around for a long time, technically since 1908. The company declared for bankruptcy back when the economy was drastically failing but went public in 2010 and hasn’t looked back. The company was able to raise a huge $15.8 billion from their IPO.
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2. Facebook – $16 Billion
Two years ago Facebook held their IPO on May 17th, 2012. The company had the second largest IPO of all time and raised a mega $16 billion. The company was very anticipated because of how successful it became in such a short period of time and has been able to hold its position as the king of social media. Facebook still doesn’t seem to be going anywhere because it has adapted well to accommodate what people want, and is still trading at $67 per share.
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1. Visa – $17.9 Billion
Visa takes the title of having the largest IPO ever which happened back in March of 2008. The company is one of, if not, the largest credit card company out there and was able to pull in a total of $17.9 billion raised at their IPO. This is a service that will always be needed and Visa seems to be the most widespread. The company’s stock has been on a very slight decline but is still trading at $208.
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