Australian telecom provider Telstra raked in almost $10 billion in 1997.
Cameron Spencer/Getty Images
10. Telstra Corporation
State-owned companies can get fairly large. And when they're privatized and decide to go public, their IPOs can make a huge splash. Such was the case on Nov. 15, 1997, when Australian telecommunication company Telstra listed itself as a publicly-traded company for the first time.
The company's earnings the year before -- totaling more than $15 billion -- got the attention of investors [source: Sasser, et al]. Its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was an offering of 4 billion shares, about 30 percent of the company. As a result, the company managed to raise more than $9.8 billion dollars in its first day of trading [source: BusinessWeek].
At home, too, the company was immediately a huge success, cornering 95 percent of the market value of the Australian Stock Exchange's telecommunications index following its introduction to the market [source: Steen, et al].
