Offer for Sale
This is the most common way of promoting a new issue and bringing a company to the stockmarket and listing shares for the first time.
An offer for sale gives as large a number of investors as possible the chance to invest in the security being offered. That means a wide distribution of shareholdings and holds out the prospect of a good trading market in the shares when they have been issued.
An issuing house buys the shares and then sells them on to the investing public. A prospectus containing the details of the sale must be published in at least two national newspapers.