Kraft Foods, the largest food producer in the Unites States, managed to raise $8.7 billion in its June 2001 IPO. Pffft.
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Tuesday, June 12, 2001, was a big day for American food giant Kraft. The company made its initial public offering (IPO) -- its debut as a publicly-traded company -- on the New York Stock Exchange that day. In just one day of trading, Kraft sold 280 million shares of itself to investors for $31 apiece, amassing a cool $8.7 billion in new capital by the time trading ended [source: Reuters]. Kraft's IPO became the second largest in U.S. history.
In the parlance of global IPO history, this is peanuts.
Initial public offerings are as high as high finance gets. When a well-known, formerly private company goes public, investors clamor for shares. They already know the company's management, they know its earning history, its forecasts. In many cases, the only thing left to chance is how much higher the share price will go once trading begins.
They're also the result of months or years of work. Companies turn to investment banks to underwrite the offerings, vet buyers, scintillate the media and value the stock. When it goes right, an IPO can mean a sudden infusion of cash in the tens of billions in just a matter of hours for some companies.
What follows are the 10 most successful IPOs (by one day proceeds) in the history of the world.
