When google became a public company through its initial public offering (ipo) in 2004 it utilized an auction process to sell 150 million shares. investors placed a bid on what they would pay for a share of google stock and how many shares they would buy at that price. the price all winning bidders paid was the lowest price that allowed google to sell its 150 million shares, even if any bidder had bid a higher price.
the google stock offering is best described as because the winning price is a function of the required to sell all the shares.