IPO

American  

abbreviation

1. initial public offering: a company's first stock offering to the public.

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IPO British  

abbreviation

1. independent publicly owned company

2. stock exchange initial public offering

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IPO Cultural  

1. Abbreviation for i nitial p ublic o ffering; the first issuance of shares in itself by a public company.

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Etymology

Origin of IPO

First recorded in 1975–80

Example Sentences

Investors will receive, for no additional consideration, 20 shares of Pershing Square Inc. for every 100 shares purchased in the Pershing Square USA IPO, the company added.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 23, 2026

The IPO for Pershing Square Inc. is a component of a single offering which includes Pershing Square USA, Ltd.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 23, 2026

The AI deal precedes SpaceX’s trillion-dollar IPO, following $16 billion in sales and over 60% profit margin last year.

From Barron's • Apr. 22, 2026

Starlink is an incredible franchise, but an IPO valuation of up to $2 trillion will depend on Elon Musk convincing the analysts that AI data centers in space will be a thing.

From Barron's • Apr. 21, 2026

It is estimated that a person who invested $5,000 in Netflix at its 2002 IPO would have about $30,000 by January 2010, about $200,000 by January 2015, and about $1.4 million by January 2020.

From "The First State of Being" by Erin Entrada Kelly