1 Once upon a time, when you bought broccoli you bought the whole vegetable, stems and crowns. Then it became customary for grocery store produce departments to separate the crowns from the stems and to sell the crowns at a premium. 2  Iâm not a fan of this practice, because I like both parts of the broccoli plant.
A company's first issue of common stock to the public is called an Initial Public Offering. Afterwards, a corporation may issue new equity at any time in order to finance its growth. When new common shares are offered to existing shareholders first, this is called a rights offering.
The par value of a share is the value stated in the corporate charter below which shares of that class cannot be sold upon initial offering; the issuing company promises not to issue further shares below par value, so investors can be confident that no one else will receive a more favorable issue price.