When the Ducks are Quacking

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“We are definitely in a moment where there is more greed than there is fear… Base advice over 42 years of doing this: When capital is available – if you’re capital consumptive and it’s available – take the capital if you know that you’re going to need it.” — David Solomon, Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs, June 2026.Today it would rank only tenth, but when it came to the market in January 1956, Ford’s was the largest initial public offering in US history.It was a long time coming. The company had been founded over fifty years before and had remained private throughout. Early investors had long since cashed out so there was no clamor for liquidity. Indeed, their success was legend. Everyone knew the story of James Couzens – later Senator Couzens – who scraped together $2,500 to invest in the new Ford Motor Company in 1903; in 1919, Henry Ford bought him out for $30 million. So when the public were finally invited in, the response was unlike anything Wall Street had seen.The selling shareholder was the Ford Foundation. To mitigate estate taxes, Henry and his son, Edsel, had transferred almost 90% of the company’s stock into a foundation in 1936. Although technically a philanthropic endeavor, the Fords used it to safeguard family control. Henry died in 1947, Edsel before him in 1943, and by the mid-1950s the Foundation was keen to diversify. Its endowment was substantial – by this time, Ford was one of the largest private companies in America – but its income consisted entirely of Ford dividends, too unpredictable to plan around. Selling shares was the solution.Yet before an IP…