An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment banks, who also arrange for the shares to be listed on one or more stock exchanges. Through this process, colloquially known as floating, or going public, a privately held company is transformed into a public company. Initial public offerings can be used to raise new equity capital for companies, to monetize the investments of private shareholders such as company founders or private equity investors, and to enable easy trading of existing holdings or future capital raising by becoming publicly traded.
In finance, being short in an asset means investing in such a way that the investor will profit if the value of the asset falls. This is the opposite of a more conventional "long" position, where the investor will profit if the value of the asset rises.
An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital the investor usually purchases some species of property. Types of investments include equity, debt, securities, real estate, infrastructure, currency, commodity, token, derivatives such as put and call options, futures, forwards, etc. This definition makes no distinction between the investors in the primary and secondary markets. That is, someone who provides a business with capital and someone who buys a stock are both investors. An investor who owns stock is a shareholder.
A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or individual. Management- and/or leveraged buyouts became noted phenomena of 1980s business economics. These so-called MBOs originated in the US, spreading first to the UK and then throughout the rest of Europe. The venture capital industry has played a crucial role in the development of buyouts in Europe, especially in smaller deals in the UK, the Netherlands, and France.
In finance, a long position in a financial instrument means the holder of the position owns a positive amount of the instrument. The holder of the position has the expectation that the financial instrument will increase in value. This is known as a bullish position.
In finance and accounting, par value means stated value or face value of a financial instrument. Expressions derived from this term include at par, over par and under par.
The Bucharest Stock Exchange is the stock exchange of Romania located in Bucharest. In 2023, the BVB's market capitalization increased by 52.7% to $64.9 billion. As of 2023, there were 85 companies listed on the BVB.
Naked short selling, or naked shorting, is the practice of short-selling a tradable asset of any kind without first borrowing the asset from someone else or ensuring that it can be borrowed. When the seller does not obtain the asset and deliver it to the buyer within the required time frame, the result is known as a "failure to deliver" (FTD). The transaction generally remains open until the asset is acquired and delivered by the seller, or the seller's broker settles the trade on their behalf.
Farkhad Teimurovich Akhmedov is an Azerbaijani businessman and a former politician in Russia, departing his role in 2009. He is a former representative in the Federation Council of the Russian Federation.
William Albert Ackman is an American billionaire hedge fund manager who is the founder and chief executive officer of Pershing Square Capital Management, a hedge fund management company. His investment approach has made him an activist investor. As of January 2024, Ackman's net worth was estimated at $4 billion by Forbes.
Stocks consist of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporation in proportion to the total number of shares. This typically entitles the shareholder (stockholder) to that fraction of the company's earnings, proceeds from liquidation of assets, or voting power, often dividing these up in proportion to the amount of money each stockholder has invested. Not all stock is necessarily equal, as certain classes of stock may be issued, for example, without voting rights, with enhanced voting rights, or with a certain priority to receive profits or liquidation proceeds before or after other classes of shareholders.
Block, Inc. is a U.S. public company founded by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey in 2009. It is a financial technology conglomerate, reportedly serving 56 million users and 4 million businesses, with an annual payment processing volume of US$228 billion as of 2023.
Andrew Edward Left is an activist, short seller, author and editor of the online investment newsletter Citron Research, formerly StockLemon.com. Under the name Citron Research, Left publishes reports on firms that he claims are overvalued or are engaged in fraud. Left is known for advising investors on short selling and has often appeared on various media outlets such as CNBC and Bloomberg to talk about his opinions on stocks. In 2017, Left was called 'The Bounty Hunter of Wall Street' by The New York Times. Left gained further notoriety following his announced short of GameStop, precipitating a short squeeze that has hurt him and other short sellers in the short term.
Muddy Waters Research LLC is an American privately held due diligence based investment firm that conducts investigative research on public companies while also taking investment positions that reflect their research. It has exposed accounting problems and fraud at several companies, primarily in China but also in other countries in Asia, Europe and North America.
Louis Tung Jung Hsieh is a Chinese businessman and lawyer and the global chief financial officer (CFO) and director of Hesai Group, a company supplying three-dimensional light detection and ranging (LiDAR) solutions. Hsieh joined Hesai as CFO in April 2021 and became a director in June 2021. He helped take the company public on Nasdaq in February 2023, with an initial public offering (IPO) that was oversubscribed by approximately 20 times.
Benjamin Dirx is a French entrepreneur and politician of La République En Marche! (LREM) who has been serving as a member of the French National Assembly since the 2017 elections, representing the department of Saône-et-Loire.
The China Hustle is a 2017 finance documentary produced by Magnolia Pictures and directed by Jed Rothstein. The documentary reveals systematic and formulaic decades-long securities fraud by Chinese companies listed on the US stock market.
Melvin Capital Management LP was an American investment management firm based in New York City. It was founded in 2014 by Gabriel Plotkin, who named the firm after his late grandfather.
Hindenburg Research LLC is a U.S. investment research firm with a focus on activist short-selling founded by Nathan Anderson in 2017. Named after the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, which they characterize as a human-made avoidable disaster, the firm generates public reports via its website that allege corporate fraud and malfeasance. Companies that have been the subjects of their reports include Adani Group, Nikola, Clover Health, Block, Inc., Kandi, and Lordstown Motors. These reports also feature defenses of the practice of short-selling and explanations of how short-sells can "play a critical role in exposing fraud and protecting investors."
Clover Health Investments, Corp is an American health care company founded in 2014. The company provides Medicare Advantage (MA) insurance plans and operates as a direct contracting entity with the U.S. government. The company manages care for Medicare beneficiaries in 11 states and started trading publicly on January 8, 2021.
