The Biggest IPOs in History: Who Raised the Most Money — and Who Actually Created Value?

From SpaceX and Saudi Aramco to Alibaba, European privatisations and Switzerland’s largest flotations: a global short history of stock-market debuts, and the lessons for long-term investors.

13 November 2026

In June 2026, SpaceX changed the meaning of a “mega-IPO”. The company sold approximately 555.6 million shares at USD 135 each, raising USD 75 billion before the underwriters’ overallotment. On 15 June, SpaceX announced that the full additional-share option had been exercised, bringing gross IPO proceeds to approximately USD 85.7 billion. Saudi Aramco, which had raised USD 25.6 billion in its 2019 initial placement (approximately USD 29.4 billion after overallotment), was no longer the record-holder. [1–3]

The striking part is not only the scale. SpaceX’s share price closed at USD 160.95 on its first trading day, about 19.2% above the USD 135 offer price. Buyers allotted stock at the offer price and those purchasing at the first-day close therefore started from very different entry points. A record-breaking capital raise says a great deal about the issuer’s access to capital; it says almost nothing, by itself, about the return an ordinary investor can expect. [4]

This article separates three questions usually compressed into a single headline: How much capital was sold? What was the entire company valued at? Did investors subsequently make money after adjusting for risk, dividends and the broader market? It then distinguishes five geographical perspectives — the United States, Europe, Asia, Switzerland and the rest of the world — rather than presenting a US-only history of IPOs.

What an IPO number actually means

An initial public offering is the first sale of shares to public investors associated with admitting a company to a public equity market. For a useful comparison, however, five definitions must be made explicit.

Gross IPO proceeds are the number of shares offered multiplied by the offer price. They are not the market capitalisation. A company can sell only a small percentage of its equity yet be valued at hundreds of billions of dollars. Primary shares are newly created shares that raise money for the company; secondary shares are sold by existing owners, so the company does not receive those proceeds. Most IPOs include one or both.

The greenshoe, or overallotment option, permits underwriters to purchase additional shares, often to support price stabilisation and meet demand. The difference is substantial in large offerings: SpaceX’s approximately USD 75 billion initial sale grew to roughly USD 85.7 billion after the full option; Aramco’s approximately USD 25.6 billion grew to USD 29.4 billion. Rankings that mix initial proceeds and final proceeds are not comparing the same thing. [1–3]

A fourth issue is geography. A company can be incorporated, headquartered, raise capital and list its shares in four different places. Alibaba is a Chinese enterprise that completed its landmark 2014 listing in New York; Glencore was Switzerland-associated and listed in London; AIA listed in Hong Kong. For regional analysis, we classify firms primarily by operating origin, and state the exchange separately.

Finally, not every large new listing is the first IPO of a company. SK hynix’s July 2026 USD 26.507 billion Nasdaq American depositary share offering raised fresh capital, but its common shares were already listed in Korea. Alibaba’s November 2019 Hong Kong offering similarly followed its 2014 New York flotation. These are major cross-border equity offerings, but not new entries into public ownership by previously unlisted firms. [5–6]

The world’s largest IPO-related share offerings

The following league table reproduces the 20 largest deals in Renaissance Capital’s global offering database, ranked by gross proceeds before greenshoe, in nominal USD at the exchange rate prevailing when priced. It is a useful comparison of transaction size, but not a pure list of 20 first-ever IPOs. Entries marked † are subsequent overseas listings or offerings by already publicly traded companies. Chinese A-share and H-share tranches are displayed separately when the data provider does so; therefore figures should not be added mechanically to a second aggregate ranking. [7]

Rank	Company and jurisdiction	Year	Principal venue	Initial gross proceeds, USD bn
1	SpaceX — United States	2026	Nasdaq	75.00
2	SK hynix† — South Korea	2026	Nasdaq ADR	26.51
3	Saudi Aramco — Saudi Arabia	2019	Tadawul	25.60
4	Alibaba — China	2014	NYSE	21.77
5	SoftBank Corp. — Japan	2018	Tokyo	21.35
6	NTT DoCoMo (NTT Mobile) — Japan	1998	Tokyo	18.09
7	Visa — United States	2008	NYSE	17.86
8	AIA — Hong Kong	2010	Hong Kong	17.82
9	Enel — Italy	1999	Italian/US placement	16.45
10	Facebook (Meta) — United States	2012	Nasdaq	16.01
11	General Motors — United States	2010	NYSE	15.77
12	ICBC H-share tranche — China	2006	Hong Kong	13.96
13	Deutsche Telekom — Germany	1996	German/US placement	13.03
14	Rivian — United States	2021	Nasdaq	11.93
15	Alibaba† — China	2019	Hong Kong	11.24
16	Dai-ichi Life — Japan	2010	Tokyo	10.99
17	LG Energy Solution — South Korea	2022	Seoul	10.74
18	AT&T Wireless — United States	2000	NYSE	10.62
19	Agricultural Bank of China H-share tranche — China	2010	Hong Kong	10.44
20	Rosneft — Russia	2006	Moscow/London offering	10.42

Reading the table correctly. The data provider uses a cross-market deal taxonomy, not a legal test of whether an enterprise had previously been listed. It includes the SK hynix ADR transaction and Alibaba’s second listing. China’s Agricultural Bank and ICBC were marketed through related Hong Kong and Shanghai transactions: Renaissance Capital reports approximately USD 19.2 billion for Agricultural Bank and USD 19.1 billion for ICBC when their A- and H-share tranches are combined. A globally consolidated IPO ranking would therefore place those issuers differently. Enel and Deutsche Telekom are cross-border distribution programmes whose home listings differ from the provider’s representative exchange field. The table is nominal, not inflation-adjusted and should not be mistaken for an investor-return ranking. [5–7]

Three different “largest” rankings

The largest individual deal before greenshoe was SpaceX at USD 75 billion. The largest completed initial offer after greenshoe was also SpaceX at approximately USD 85.7 billion. For historical comparison, Saudi Aramco reached approximately USD 29.4 billion after its additional allocation. And for an issuer offering its shares simultaneously in more than one market, combining the A- and H-share legs — as with the Chinese banks — produces a different ranking again. [1–3, 7]

Inflation adds a fourth dimension. USD 10 billion raised in the late 1990s represented more purchasing power than USD 10 billion in 2026. An inflation-adjusted chart is analytically worthwhile, but should be computed with one documented index, one consistent currency convention, and the actual transaction month. We deliberately do not mix indicative CPI adjustments into the nominal league table above.

United States: growth capital, financial restructuring and the cost of expectations

The American market has supplied several different species of mega-IPO. Visa (2008) created a publicly traded enterprise out of an association-based card-network structure during the financial crisis. General Motors (2010) returned to the public markets after bankruptcy and government intervention; the offering was also a step toward government disinvestment. Facebook (2012) brought a rapidly growing advertising platform to public shareholders. Rivian (2021) demonstrated the appetite for electric-vehicle growth narratives. SpaceX (2026) combined an unusually large primary offering, substantial founder control and exposure to capital-intensive aerospace, satellite services and artificial intelligence. [1, 7–8]

These cases should not be collapsed into one explanation. Visa was not a start-up; General Motors was not a technology growth company; Facebook did not need capital to build factories; and SpaceX’s valuation involved businesses with different cash-generation profiles and investment requirements. The commonality was that public-market buyers accepted a price at which significant pre-listing expectations were crystallised into a tradeable share.

Take Facebook. Its 2012 IPO was priced at USD 38 per share and faced a difficult initial aftermarket. The long-term success of its advertising business later proved quite different from the experience of an investor who focused solely on the first few months after the offering. That does not mean poor immediate performance predicts excellent long-term performance. It means the business and the price paid for its shares are different variables.

SpaceX provides a newer illustration. Reuters reported a USD 1.77 trillion equity valuation at the IPO price and noted that the company was loss-making in the preceding year. Its first-day gain of 19.2% rewarded investors who received the offering allocation, but an investor paying USD 160.95 at the first close would require future operating value to justify that entry price. Large unrealised market opportunities, however exciting, must eventually become cash flows available to shareholders. [1, 4]

The US discussion therefore raises two practical questions. Who received shares at the offer price, and how much of the apparent first-day performance could a normal investor realistically capture? And how much of the company’s future commercial success was already included in the valuation?

Europe excluding Switzerland: public ownership and the politics of privatisation

Europe’s historical mega-IPOs frequently arose from privatisation and the restructuring of established businesses rather than the venture-capital-to-stock-market pathway associated with Silicon Valley. Germany’s Deutsche Telekom and Italy’s Enel were flagship transactions in which governments sought to widen share ownership, develop capital markets and create internationally competitive listed companies. [7, 9]

Deutsche Telekom is particularly instructive because the first transaction was followed by additional share placements. Its own investor-relations history distinguishes the first listing on 18 November 1996 from the further offerings of 1999 and 2000. Only the first was the initial public debut; the later tranches were not new IPOs even if they were advertised as such in the company’s historical retail programme. Deutsche Telekom reports that the share price reached EUR 103.50 in March 2000 and later fell to EUR 7.71 in June 2012. This is a reminder that an outstanding brand, a state-backed heritage and broad retail participation do not neutralise valuation risk. [9–10]

Porsche AG’s September 2022 flotation illustrates a different European model: monetising a prestigious industrial brand while maintaining concentrated control. Volkswagen’s annual report states that 113.875 million non-voting Porsche preferred shares were placed at EUR 82.50, for approximately EUR 9.4 billion including additional allocations. The special governance structure and the distinction between preferred shares and voting shares mattered as much as the headline valuation. [11]

Europe’s key IPO question is not only “how fast can this company grow?” It is often “who really controls the business after flotation, who receives the proceeds, and why is the shareholder base being broadened now?” Those questions can explain why an apparently attractive industrial company may nonetheless offer limited influence and uncertain returns to minority investors.

Asia: banking reform, telecommunications and platform expansion

Asia’s place in the IPO record books predates the recent technological boom. Japan’s NTT DoCoMo and SoftBank Corp. reflected the capital needs and ownership evolution of large telecommunications businesses. China’s ICBC and Agricultural Bank of China combined immense balance sheets with capital-market reforms and multi-market issuance. South Korea’s LG Energy Solution linked equity issuance to battery investment and electrification. Hong Kong’s AIA illustrated the scale of an insurance group operating across rapidly developing Asian markets. [7]

Alibaba’s 2014 New York IPO became one of the defining capital-market events of the internet era. Its USD 21.77 billion initial sale demonstrated that an Asian company could reach a global pool of institutional investors at enormous scale. Yet its governance, overseas holding structure, regulatory exposure and dependence on Chinese domestic markets were not equivalent to those of an ordinary American technology company. Its 2019 Hong Kong fundraising must be treated as a subsequent listing, not as a second first-ever IPO. [7]

SK hynix’s July 2026 Nasdaq ADR deal creates a new version of the problem. Its SEC prospectus explicitly states that its common shares were already traded on the Korea Exchange. It was a very large US capital raising by a Korean-listed issuer — not the moment when SK hynix first became publicly owned. This distinction is crucial when comparing international financial centres. [5–6]

Switzerland: fewer mega-deals, but an unusually revealing history

Switzerland’s IPO history is smaller in absolute amount, partly reflecting its population, issuer composition, established banking networks and the availability of cross-border exchanges. Yet it offers particularly useful lessons about the relationship between a firm’s home country and its listing venue.

Swisscom’s October 1998 flotation remains an essential historical benchmark. The Swiss Federal Audit Office recorded 25.4 million shares sold at CHF 340, for an issue value of approximately CHF 8.6 billion, calling it the largest stock-market launch ever undertaken in Switzerland at that time. The Confederation retained roughly 65.5% of the shares immediately after the operation. Here, the ownership retained by the state — and not merely the sale amount — helps explain the company’s subsequent governance. [12]

Galderma’s March 2024 IPO is a more recent example. SIX records CHF 2.286 billion in transaction volume including the exercised greenshoe, a CHF 53 issue price and CHF 64 first-day closing price. That first-day closing gain was about 20.8% versus the issue price, before costs. However, an investor who bought at the first close did not earn that uplift. The Swiss exchange’s data also separate primary shares from shares sold by existing owners. [13]

Glencore’s 2011 London listing is the borderline case that should be presented separately, not quietly moved into a SIX ranking. The commodities group was historically based in the Zug area, yet raised approximately USD 10 billion through a London-led offering, with a Hong Kong component. Swiss links therefore do not automatically imply a Swiss exchange IPO or CHF-denominated investment risk. [7]

For a Swiss private investor, it matters whether the security is listed in CHF, EUR, GBP, HKD or USD; whether dividends face source-country withholding tax; whether the issuer is domiciled in Switzerland or elsewhere; and whether the stock can be traded at an acceptable total cost through the investor’s bank or broker. Swiss private capital gains are generally treated differently from taxable income, subject to the facts and professional-securities-dealer classification. Specific tax outcomes, stamp duties and foreign withholding-tax relief require an investor-by-investor assessment, not a generic IPO rule.

Rest of the world: sovereign ownership, energy and emerging-market risk

Saudi Aramco remains the paradigmatic IPO outside the US, Europe and Asia. It was not a young company seeking to finance discovery. It was a strategically central, state-controlled energy producer selling a small fraction of its equity to public investors. Its dividend policy, oil-price exposure, geopolitical considerations and state shareholder objectives all mattered. At the 2019 offer price, an investor was making an energy-and-governance judgment as well as buying a share in a very large business. [2–3]

Russia’s Rosneft (2006) was another large energy-related placement, where sovereign influence and geopolitical exposure mattered independently of conventional valuation metrics. Other major transactions in the Middle East and Latin America have been linked to privatisation, infrastructure, natural resources and domestic market deepening. They may provide diversification across sectors and regions, but they can also combine currency risk, ownership concentration, legal uncertainty and limited investor remedies.

For foreign investors, the critical questions often concern governance and convertibility, not simply earnings. Can minority owners realistically influence capital allocation? Is there a liquid secondary market? Can dividends and sale proceeds be repatriated? What happens if sanctions, index exclusions or trading restrictions interrupt market access? Such risks are difficult to summarise in a single expected-return figure.

Do IPO investors outperform after the first day?

A large first-day gain is commonly interpreted as evidence that an IPO succeeded. That conclusion depends on whose perspective is used. A company that prices shares at USD 100 and sees them trade at USD 120 has obtained capital, but arguably sold equity for less than the market would immediately pay. Allocated investors receive a mark-to-market gain; buyers in the aftermarket pay the higher price. Both events can occur without telling us whether the stock is attractive for the following decade.

Jay Ritter’s University of Florida data, covering 9,253 qualifying US operating-company IPOs from 1980 through 2024, report an average first-day return of 18.9%. Measured from the first closing market price, the average three-year buy-and-hold return was 19.1%, against approximately 39.6% for the corresponding market comparison, giving a 20.5-percentage-point average market-adjusted shortfall. The data are US-specific, equal-weighted, subject to screening rules and not a forecast for mega-IPOs or the 2026 cohort. Nevertheless, they provide a useful correction to the idea that first-day excitement makes IPOs an easy investment strategy. [14]

What is measured?	Investor perspective	Main analytical risk
Offer price to first close	Investor who actually receives an IPO allocation	Allocation is often limited or inaccessible
First close to one year	Investor buying after trading begins	Initial enthusiasm may already be reflected in price
First close to three/five years	Patient public-market investor	Dividends, delistings and corporate actions must be included
Return relative to a broad index	Investor choosing IPO stock instead of a diversified alternative	A positive absolute return may still be a poor relative result
Return after FX, trading costs and taxes	Swiss/European individual investor	Currency and friction can dominate a modest edge

The best long-term IPO studies incorporate delisted companies, rather than examining only surviving success stories. Comparing merely today’s famous winners creates survivorship bias. Using an offer price unavailable to most retail buyers creates access bias. And treating a strong result after a decade as proof the original decision was obvious creates hindsight bias.

Why some enormous IPOs disappoint

Valuation is the first variable. A good business can be a poor investment when growth, margins or durability are overestimated at the purchase price. High nominal market capitalisation is not proof of an investment moat. When an IPO trades at an exceptional revenue multiple, even operational success may be insufficient if the market later applies a lower valuation multiple.

Timing is the second. Issuers and selling shareholders possess discretion over when to float; they may be more likely to sell when investors value their sector enthusiastically. An IPO boom can therefore cluster around periods when the cost of equity is unusually attractive for issuers rather than cheap for new shareholders.

Incentives are the third. Founders may seek control and a liquid reference value; private-equity owners may seek realisation; governments may seek policy and fiscal benefits; underwriters earn fees for distributing stock. None of these aims is necessarily illegitimate, but they are not identical to the objective of a long-term minority shareholder.

Governance and capital allocation are the fourth. Dual-class shares, controlling shareholders, related-party arrangements, government influence, low free float and weak shareholder rights can all alter the economic value of a share. Investing in shares is not simply purchasing a pro rata slice of sales growth: it is accepting the legal rights, cash-flow claims and risks attached to a specific security.

The counterfactual is the fifth. A successful IPO investment should be compared with what the same money could have earned in an appropriately diversified portfolio. A concentrated position that doubles while a relevant index triples has produced a positive outcome, but not a particularly strong relative one.

A practical decision framework for European and Swiss investors

Before joining an IPO, investors should be able to answer the following questions rather than rely on a reputation or an order-book headline.

Proceeds: How much is newly raised capital, and how much is a sale by existing owners? Why is the company or shareholder selling now?
Valuation: What enterprise value, free-cash-flow yield and plausible long-run growth are already implied by the offer price? What if margins disappoint?
Governance: Which shareholders retain control? Are minority shareholders adequately protected? What rights attach to the share class being offered?
Underwriting and float: What portion of shares is actually tradeable? Who receives IPO allocations? When do lock-ups expire, and how might future supply affect the price?
Business model: Is the company profitable and capable of financing investment internally, or does it depend on repeated equity issuance or debt financing?
Portfolio role: Would this holding duplicate exposures already present through an equity index fund? How large a loss could the investor absorb without jeopardising financial objectives?
Swiss implementation: What are the aggregate dealing commission, bid-ask spread, FX conversion costs, stamp duties where applicable, custody fees and dividend-tax consequences?
Alternative: What is the expected benefit of this concentrated security over buying a low-cost diversified ETF and waiting for audited public-market reporting?

For most long-term investors, the investable decision is not whether the IPO is exciting. It is whether its expected risk-adjusted value, at a price genuinely available to them, is attractive compared with a diversified and cheaper alternative. Patience is a legitimate option. Newly listed businesses will often have many years of publicly available financial disclosures after their first trading day.

Guidefinances conclusion: size attracts attention; price determines investment value

The history of major IPOs is a history of financial markets themselves. American listings reflect innovation, reorganisation and investor appetite for growth; European flotations often illustrate privatisation, industrial ownership and governance; Asian records reveal banking reform, telecommunications, industrial expansion and platform businesses; Switzerland provides lessons in state ownership and cross-border listing; and the Middle East and other regions bring the financial and political dimensions of resource and sovereign businesses to the fore.

The record for money raised belongs to the issuer, not to the shareholder who buys afterward. SpaceX’s 2026 offering is historically exceptional. Whether its shares prove to be an exceptional long-term investment depends on future cash generation, governance, risk and — above all — the price paid. The same principle applied to Saudi Aramco, Alibaba, Visa, Deutsche Telekom and Swisscom.

For a non-professional investor, a low-cost diversified equity fund remains a reasonable baseline. A newly listed security can be considered as a deliberate, limited satellite investment when the economics, ownership rights and valuation are comprehensible. A giant IPO is worth studying. It is not automatically worth buying.

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