Retail investors have been excluded from the forthcoming flotation by Virgin Money, but they will still be able to take a punt on the shares.
Given the high profile nature of the flotation, the spread betting firms are sure to be making a grey market in the shares.
Things are made complicated, however, by the fact that the company, which took advantage of the UK banking crisis in the previous decade to acquire a chunk of the Northern Rock business, has yet to indicate how many shares it intends to list and at what price.
All we know is that existing shareholders, including Virgin Money employees, will be selling a portion of their existing holdings and that around £150mln of new shares will be issued.
Alastair McCaig, a market analyst at spread betting powerhouse IG Group, reckons current indications point to almost £500mln in fresh capital being raised.
Virgin has indicated that the free float – the proportion of shares not held by committed long-term owners – will be at least 25% of the entire issued share capital.
Based on this, IG reckons the company is likely to make its stock market debut valued at between £2.05bn and £2.15bn.