Preliminary Schedule Example: Fill & Download for Free

Let me give you an example of what a director brings to a movie script. In 1977 when I was working at Universal Studios, I was asked to do the preliminary schedule and budget for Animal House. I was so put off by the tone of the script that I told the head of production when I turned in the budget that if they actually made the movie, I wasn't interested in being a part of it. As they say, "The rest is history." John Landis was hired as the director and made that offensive script into the hit movie it became.Around the same time, I did the preliminary budget and schedule for another film whose script was so emotional that I was wiping the tears from my eyes as I broke it down. The movie that was released was wooden, stiff, and no one went to see it.It takes more than a good script.

High school freshman year is a cakewalk. Your class schedule is mostly picked for you, sometimes even the electives are picked for you. College, on the other hand, gives you a preliminary schedule that you can adjust slightly. But unlike fulfilling ninth-grade requirements from a state- or district-prescribed list, your college freshman year is based on your admissions test and transcripts. For example, I went straight to English 220 at DeVry because I completed English 101 at San Diego City College. They also gave an advanced Humanities class, possibly stemming from my Labor Studies. That’s how you’re ranked.

Here’s a very simplified version of what happens for IPOs.Private company XYZ has 80M shares; 30M in Preferred Stocks held by Investors (VC/PE) and 50M in Common Stocks (Board Members, Employees, Partners, Contractors). XYZ decides to raise capital by offering to sell 30M shares to the public through an IPO. 10M will be from converted Preferred to Common Stocks held by the VCs and 20M will be newly issued Common Stocks.XYZ hires an underwriter to lead the IPO process, usually an investment banking firm like Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley. The firm assembles a team of underwriters, lawyers, CPAs and SEC experts to prepare all the required documents for filing. The S-1 Registration Statement is the primary document to file for an IPO. The statement contains 2 portions; public information such as the preliminary schedule for IPO, prospectus and financial information, and private information for the SEC that is not released to public. The S-1 is continually updated during the period leading to the IPO.The executives of XYZ (CEO, CFO, and others as needed) and the lead underwriters then go on a roadshow to present the company to institutional firms like Fidelity and Vanguard to generate and to gauge interest for its shares. If there is a lot of interest, the offering price may be adjusted higher. For example, if the original price range was around $15 per share, the offering price could be increased to $20 due to oversubscription.From the IPO, XYZ raised ($20*20M = $400M) for its general purpose use and the VCs cashed in ($20*10M = $200M). If the stock goes to $30 in the open public market, the VCs could make another ($30*20M = $600M) from selling their remaining 20M Common Stocks. At $30, XYZ would be valued at ($30*100M = $3B).There are other options for a company to go public besides an IPO. A company can also choose to go public through a Direct Public Offering (DPO) such as Spotify and Slack, or through a merger with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) such as Draftkings and Virgin Galactic.