Thanks SAB,
My old broker told me how he'd gather shares for major customers, that was decades ago, but it sounds like things haven't changed much since then.
I believe if a brokerage has sufficient interest from Institutional clients they propose an offering to a company. If the company agrees, most if not all the shares in the offering are already spoken for. On rare occasions in the old days I'd get a hundred of so of the newly issued shares. Back then there were two advantages, they were normally at a discount to the market, and we paid commissions on each trade back then, there were no commissions on shares from offerings.
I really don't know if individuals anywhere are paying commissions, though it's probably still true at full-service brokerages. I haven't been with a full-service broker for decades.
I'm sure there are some advantages in dealing with a full-service broker, but I'm happy with Fidelity and will probably stay there if my account goes well into 7 or 8 digits.
Gary
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