Initial Public Offerings – An Issuer’s Guide

For most companies and their owners, an initial public offering (IPO) is a “once-in-in-a-lifetime” event that may represent the culmination of many years of hard work. The IPO may provide both the shareholders and management of the company with a significant sense of accomplishment and will arguably be one of the most important milestones in the corporate evolution of a company, for its owners, management, employees and other stakeholders.

An IPO, however, will also frequently bring with it a sense of upheaval as significant changes are often required to be made to the way a company operates and conducts itself – membership of the new "public" world brings with it legal and compliance obligations that need to be both understood and complied with.

Mayer Brown has a global team of IPO lawyers with experience guiding our issuer and underwriter clients through the IPO process from the initial kick-off meeting through completion of their initial public offerings in most of the major markets across the globe.

If you would like to learn more about initial public offerings, please click on the link below to view a PDF copy of the European Edition of our Initial Public Offerings – An Issuer’s Guide or to request a hard copy. The guide is primarily intended to assist potential IPO candidates and their owners, management teams and in-house lawyers to assess the commercial and legal implications (good and bad) of “going public” and to generally better understand the likely time, effort, costs and related documentation involved in conducting an IPO, either in an SEC-registered transaction in the United States or in connection with a listing on a regulated or exchange-regulated market in Europe. However, we hope that other market participants (such as underwriting banks, law firms or other financial and legal advisers) will also find it helpful.