Expert view: Weighing up all options

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Going public and undertaking an initial public offering (IPO) is still an attractive prospect for SMEs and companies on the rise.

Of course, there are a number of advantages beyond this.

More participators in the company and a market for shares to be traded on are benefits that can continuously be exploited as time goes on.

Where an IPO fails and the leap to go public flops, businesses are put at very real risk, and they could suffer serious consequences.

In addition, during the initial IPO process and constantly afterwards, the company must comply with more stringent reporting requirements. This reduction in privacy may not be ideal for companies that are used to or prefer less disclosure in general.

Being a listed company may mean having a place in the open market but it also means being vulnerable to any adverse changes that come with it which may be outside management’s hands and often outside their previous experience in business.

Financing your business via private equity (PE) funding as an SME is often the best move to consider in the first instance, and in our experience - and across the country - it’s on the rise.

Not going public doesn’t mean the business is not successful. The costs alone of the IPO process are well worth thinking twice about – the markets are already populated with smaller companies that could not sustain the race and are in a worse position than before transitioning.