<p>It's December, which means it's about time for recaps of the year that was! Let's start with the market for initial public offerings, since we can basically see through to the end of 2013 -- barring last-minute entrants and any secret filings we may not know about, the companies that have started their road shows will be the rest of it.</p><p>By all objective measures, 2013 has been a big year for IPOs. The proceeds raised this year surpassed 2012's total in early November, putting it on track to match 2007, the highest year since the tech bubble. Market exuberance has helped even small, relatively simple companies like Potbelly's and the Container Store to debut with large jumps in their stock prices.</p><p>So which ones were the biggest?</p><p>Well, one is yet to come. In a few days, the Blackstone Group will offer the hotel chain Hilton Worldwide to the market again, after having taken it private for $26 billion in 2007. The IPO is expected to raise around $2.4 billion, which is a lot of money, and the prospect has been generating some interest because of the nature of Hilton's business model -- it mostly doesn't own hotels anymore, but rather just makes money by licensing its brand and operating properties that belong to others.</p><p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/03/twitter-wasnt-the-biggest-ipo-of-2013-you-havent-heard-of-the-company-that-was/">Keep reading...</a></p><p>Read also:</p><p><a href="http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/12/03/hilton-ipo/">Hilton IPO could outshine Twitter</a> (Fortune (blog))</p><p>Explore: <a href="http://news.google.com/news/more?ncl=d0KX7Pca-JLrJHMX3ryuhnsmvIuXM&ned=us">217 additional articles.</a></p>