Investment banking describes the activities of a firm conducted when serving as an intermediary between an issuer of securities and the investing public. Most of these activities are related to what is called “underwriting” whereby an investment bank commits to buy the new issue shares of a company for resale to the investing public. The majority of investment banks also maintain brokerage and trading operations for institutional and retail clients. As an investment bank, a company can use one of several agreements when assisting a company going through the process of issuing shares to the public. Investment banks will usually undertake one of the following arrangements when assisting a company in the issuance of shares: firm commitment, best efforts, or all or none. Not all of these methods guarantee that the initial public offering of stock will be successful.
　　投資銀行業務描述的是一家公司作為證券發行者和投資大眾的中間人進行服務活動。這些活動大多數與承銷有關，由此投資銀行許諾購買一家公司的新股票并轉售給投資大眾。大多數投資銀行也會為一些機構和散戶投資者做經紀和委托買賣業務。作為一家投資銀行公司，它可以使用多種發行協議之一來幫助公司發行股票。它通常會進行以下協議中的一種：包銷，代銷或整批委托。不是所有這些方式都可以保證首次公開發行能夠成功。