Underwriting Group

You've heard, "It takes a village." Well, IPOs and other securities offerings take multiple players as well. Underwriters usually share risk. (So do insurance companies; See: Reinsurance.) So there is normally an allocation of fees and other costs, like spread, to the entire underwriting group, who among themselves figure out how to split the loot.

It's not the company's job to tell the underwriters that the lead manager should get half the total pot, and then the two co-managers get 1/5, and then a gaggle of small players split the rest. But that's usually the structure under which core offerings happen. Regardless, it happens, usually, in a group...not on an individual basis.