[fragmede]

I might be totally misunderstanding the IPO process, but as the company, I sell, say, 100 shares at $10 at 9:00 AM Eastern of the first day. At the end of the trading day at 5:00 pm Eastern, for my balance sheet, it doesn't matter what the share price is, up or down; I've made $1,000 from that initial sale. There are follow-on effects to the company when more shares some time later, but the amount my hypothetical IPO raised is limited to the $1,000 at the start of the day.

[ketzo]

Other places on this thread, there are references to "filling up the IPO book," which is referencing the fact that you can offer 100 shares, but you don't know that all of them will sell, or that all of them will sell for the price you offer them at. That's part of the reason they're often underpriced -- to ensure they all sell.