A large part of the work in equity capital markets is helping companies with their initial public offering or IPO. But what is an initial public offering? Well, it's where previously privately held shares are sold for the first time to the public. So the company may initially have 10 shareholders. Those 10 shareholders all know each other. Maybe they are all involved in actually running the business. They've now decided that they want to raise more money and so they decide to sell to new sharers in the general public. This may be to tens hundred, thousands, even millions of new people being involved. The shares are listed on a securities exchange or a stock exchange for the very first time, and that's why it's called an initial public offering. The existing shareholders may sell some or all of their shares. So it may be that the company wants to raise cash and use that cash for investments, but it may be the fact that the existing shareholders have just decided, "Do you know what? I've had enough. I want to exit. I want to take my money and run and do something else." So the company may or may not raise new capital in the process. So two things can be happening here. Existing shareholders can sell out or the company could be raising money for itself to reinvest, or both. Lastly, this is referred to as the primary market, where shares are sold by the company to the general public. That's the primary market. But maybe the members of the general public then want to sell their shares to other members of the general public. That would be known as the secondary market.