Before the Bell

Basking in the glow of a successful roadshow, counting valuation upticks and oversubscription multiples, it is easy for an IRO to lose sight of what is going on behind the scenes: the book-building process. For all the excitement of investor presentations and one-on-ones, the underwriter's equity capital markets department is ground zero. An army of salespeople burn up the phone lines taking orders from investors, and at the end of the process they hand over a list of shareholders which forms