I'll take a stab at this one. I suspect the company in question is private/employee owned. They are raising money by selling preferred to an investor of some sort. The deal with the preferreds is that the company needs to either buy them back (ie, pay back the loan) or go public so the investor can sell the shares that way (possibly through a conversion to common shares).
Anyway, just a guess. To the OP: if your company goes public you'll be able to sell your shares on a stock exchange, or borrow money against them. On the other hand, management will be more responsible to outside investors so they may be less able to consider employee concerns as top priority. Depending on how senior you are/how much stock you own, it could be pretty lucrative.
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