Here's How to Think about today's GoPro Inc., (NASDAQ: GPRO) shelf offering.

GoPro Inc., GPRO today announced, a shelf registration for $800 million.

The secondary, will allow the firm, NASDAQ: GPRO to raise funds from the equity markets. NASDAQ: GPRO raised raised $490 million in its June IPO.

Let's take a quick moment to review what exactly is a “Self-Registration;” and, how that relates to GPRO's stock:

A shelf-registration or a “shelf offering is where where certain issuers are allowed to offer and sell securities to the public without a separate prospectus for each act of offering. Instead, there is a single prospectus for multiple, undefined future offerings....”

This, action, essentially allows the firm, in this case GoPro, to create an opportunity to sell new shares in an organized and predetermined time window. As Nick Woodman, CEO, indicated: “this offering is intended to facilitate a more orderly and gradual sale of shares” and “reduce the impact that the IPO lock-up expiration may have on our stock price.”

The Company is essentially “reserving” the number of shares that they'd like to sell. By allocating the shares today, the firm, now has the opportunity to sell those shares in the market whenever the time is most favorable to the firm—up-to 3 years into the future..

And, this is the key point of creating a shelf-registration: maintaining flexibility when raising new funds.

So, NASDAQ: GPRO has indicated that it will raise $800 by the shelf: This means, that the firm can sell shares up-to the10 million shares, based on Friday's close of $79.06 per share; this, represents about 8 percent of the outstanding shares.

Take Shelf Price and divide by Share Price: ($800,000,000/$79.06)=10,118,897 shares