Visa announced that it would raise $18.8 billion in a record initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. The move comes at a time when the credit crisis continues to plague mortgages and consumer spending, but many investors are hoping that the stock will perform similar to MasterCard (which rose five-fold since its debut). The company is roughly twice the size of MasterCard, processing $4 trillion in payments every year. However, it has recently come under fire for high fees and an anticompetitive ownership structure. It will be interesting to see just how well this company does with many of its own consumers feeling the credit crunch...

From The Independent:
Visa has announced an $18.8bn (£9.5bn) fundraising that will rank as the biggest initial public offering ever seen in the US. It comes as the credit crisis continues to destabilise financial markets, and in the middle of an otherwise arid spell for stock market flotations.