how general public distributions work
the transaction whereby a private company s shares are sold to the public for the first time is known as its initial public offering ipo if the ipo involves directly selling to a large pool of investors regardless of whether they are small retail investors or large funds then that ipo would be referred to as a general public distribution if on the other hand the ipo catered primarily to large and sophisticated investors such as investment banks hedge funds and pension funds then that would be considered a conventional public distribution 