Intention to float
Capital MarketsThe announcement that a company intends to list, which makes a European IPO public and starts the formal timetable.
Also written: ITF, ITF announcement, intention to float announcement
A European IPO usually becomes public with an intention to float announcement. It is short, it names the venue and the broad shape of the offer, and it starts the timetable that runs through connected research, investor education, a price range prospectus, the bookbuild and finally admission.
There is no direct US equivalent. A US issuer's first public step is a filed registration statement that already contains the full disclosure document, so the moment of going public and the moment of full disclosure coincide in a way they do not in Europe.
The consequence is exposure. The company is publicly in the market for weeks before there is a price, carrying the risk that conditions turn while the process runs. Deals are pulled in that window, and being seen to pull one is expensive.
That exposure explains much of what looks like European peculiarity: cornerstone demand agreed before the book opens, early soundings with institutions under the market soundings regime, and a preference for launching into a settled market rather than a promising one.
Worked example
A company announces its intention to float on the London Stock Exchange. Nothing has been priced and no prospectus has been approved.
Syndicate analysts then publish connected research, institutions are educated on the story, and a price range prospectus follows weeks later, with the bookbuild after that.
Every day of that sequence is market risk borne by the issuer, which is why so much of the demand is secured before the announcement rather than after it.