Red herring prospectus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A red herring prospectus is one submitted by a company that is planning to have an IPO. This prospectus has to be filed with SEC. It contains all the information about the company except for the offer price and the effective date, which aren't known at that time. There are several additions and edits to this document before the final prospectus is released.
The reason it is called a Red herring is due to a section of the document colored in red which explicitly states that the issuing company is not attempting to sell its shares before it has been given official approval by the SEC.
