Ebb & Flow

Historically, marketing of follow-on offerings has been a public process, while the selling of registered directs has been a private affair. But bankers have started structuring offerings that are a hybrid of the two types of deals. The idea is to remove some of the risk of public offerings - in which share prices can decline as investors anticipate dilution - while retaining the ability to tap into a wider investor base and stimulate more demand.

The new approach starts with a period of private marketing followed by a day or two of a public offering...