February 25, 2008, By Justin McHenry

Via its Security & Exchange Commission filing today, Visa announced its intention to raise nearly $19 billion in its upcoming initial public offering of stock, which would make it by far the largest IPO ever. (The largest to day was AT&T Wireless’ $10.6 billion IPO in 2000.)

Visa intends to offer 406 million shares at an initial price set between $37 and $42. The stock will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “V”. There is still no word on exactly when the Visa IPO will happen, although today’s filing offering greater detail than Visa’s initial SEC filing is a signal that the IPO should take place soon.

Visa’s rival, MasterCard, went public in 2006 and has seen its stock price rise more than 500% since, to over $200 per share.

Click here for today’s VISA IPO filing with the SEC.

By Justin McHenry

Citi announced yesterday that it has become the exclusive credit card partner to Live Nation, the concert promoter that is now getting heavily into ticket sales as well. While specifics of what benefits this brings to Citi cardholders were few, Citi did promote this as an expansion of its Private Pass program and said “potential benefits include access to presale and preferred tickets, box seats at select venues, premium seats, exclusive merchandise and a variety of unique VIP experiences.”

Citi’s Private Pass program already offers Citi cardholders pre-sale ticketing and other goodies for sports events, music shows and theater performances via its Premier Pass Web site at http://www.privatepass.citi.com. The Live Nation hookup will allow Citi to extend these offerings further.

In addition to the potential benefits to cardholders in terms of special treatment for Live Nation events, the new alliance may also give Citi first dibs on other tie-ins such as venue naming rights. So don’t be surprised if one day your local Live Nation concert hall or club has a “Citi” before its name.