It exists. In many ways, actually. The first and most obvious way is that, for a brief moment in time, the underwriters actually own all the shares being sold to the public. That is, they buy them at, say, $19 a share, and then turn around 6 minutes later and sell at $20. So if a bomb goes off in those 6 minutes and the Street panics, the bank is left holding a big bag.
But there's a bigger risk as well. If an underwriter brings a company public, using its reputation and relationships and trust. and that company ends up being a total dog of an investment...really bad things subsequently happen in many ways. The underwriter gets blamed by the company for not marketing its oh so awesome flying cars very well (so what are a few crashes when you avoid traffic, really?) Then other companies in analogous tech spaces, from the battery to the blade makers in this biz, all wanting to go public, actively avoid using this underwriter. The investors who paid $20 a share (now holding the stock at $6) aren't going to be fast customers or IPO buyers again either.
Lots at risk; lots to love.
See: Greenshoe.
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Finance: What is an Underwriter?81 Views
finance a la shmoop what is an underwriter Undertaker underwriter
taking your company public well then you need one of these guys and yeah if [Woman writing at a desk]
things go poorly well then you may need one of these guys but if things go well [Gravestone]
an underwriter will get to know your company audit your financials give their
Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to the investment community with whom they
deal regularly and introduce you as part of their family selling a piece of your
company to that world you know hedge funds mutual funds private wealthy [List of benefits that come with an underwriter]
investors such that they are the you know financial wind beneath your wings [Skyscraper flying away]
for a brief moment in time the underwriter usually an investment bank
like the vaunted Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley or JP Morgan or UBS or Sumitomo
will actually themselves own whatever piece of your company you are bringing [Logos for the banks appearing]
public like if you're selling 18 million shares at 20 bucks the bank's our
underwriters take a new public will own all 18 million shares having paid you
$19.60 for them and then turning around five minutes later and selling them for
20 bucks to John Q invest or making 40 cents a share in spread or markup or in [Spread calculation shown]
this case 40 times 18 million or 7.2 million dollars just for the pleasure so
that's an underwriter and if they screw up well yeah and ironically the [Underwriter stamp]
announcement he'll see in the digital paper is usually in the shape of a
tombstone announcing everything why a tombstone well because it represents the
death of ambiguity or confusion in that company's former life as a private one [Gravestone for ambiguity]
The Undertaker's hopefully have far far away [The Undertaker running away with the word confusion]