Se volete misurarvi con il mercato e l’impresa, ecco una anisi delle opportunità che vi si presentano. IPO significa Initial Public Offering, offerta pubblica iniziale, ed è il procedimento con il quale una società si quota in Borsa.
5 things to consider before planning IPO
Today’s companies should always have two options: Go Public or Stay Private. Which one is better depends on each company’s individual situation.
1.Going public means playing with Wall Street’s rules and their game. Usually staying private means companies can choose more or less who invests in their company without constantly having to alter their starategy or focus in order to meet Wall Street’s expectations and other existing and/or even potential hazards (e.g. Market Rules, Stock Manipulation like Naked Shorting etc.). When staying private you have the control over your company, not those ’outsiders’.
2.IPO failure may leave permanent ’scars’ or in some cases even destroy the company. One benefit of staying private is that you do not expose your company to that risk. Before going public every company should carefully consider how does that chosen strategy help your business to succeed. If you are already successful would there be another and possibly even better way than IPO, perhaps staying private? Nowadays there is even a trend that companies have actually freewillingly applied to be delisted from main lists in order to become private again, not only those who fail to meet continuing listing requirements. The resaon behind this is gaining more control over their company.
3.Strong well managed companies stay strong no matter if they are publicly listed or private; weak and poorly managed companied will eventually fail no matter if they are public or not. The question is all about building a strong company, strong brand and leading it well. The unfortunate fact is that often times public listing is seen as a quick fix to fundamental problems which could not be further from truth. This quick fix can become figuratively a quick execution. Dilluting shareholders time after another without results is easy, but cannot continue forever. Burning money is easy but lethal.
4.Usually private companies have less downside risk than public companies;weak public listed companies will dive deep without enough followers and ’support’ and they may affect the whole index. If you stay private it is much more likely that your share price meets downside support than in case of public listed companies where market forces with all related hazards affect stock price. When staying private, the control of your company stays – at least in most cases – in your hands not in the hands of thousands of outside stockholders and/or institutional investors (e.g. hedge funds etc.). When you have the control, you have better possibility to keep your company in higher value for future takeoff.
5.Staying private does not mean IPO would not be an option later on. Unlike too early public listing, staying private does not restrict future IPO (if that is in accordance with your starategy). Just the opposite. Staying private gives your company a chance to proof its value to your shareholders and other stakeholders and to the ’public’, and provide real fundamental support to make your company much more valuable regarding potential future IPO too. Staying private may help to keep the doors open for the future or even open new doors.
di Mikko M Myyryläinen
