Planning and company
Careful planning is required in initial public offerings (IPO) and a company must make the right market choice. There are a number of factors a company must consider in this process. The company must look into how accessible the potential investors are. Profile of benchmarked companies on the stock exchange is as important as the requirements to the entry of the company into the market and the level of monitoring going on and requirements for disclosure. By their very nature, a quoted company’s shares are available to the public.
The main aim of the company when it advertises for the shares is to reach as many investors as possible. Not only have to have that but the investors needed to be convinced that the company is worth investing in. The company therefore avails detailed financial and management information before being given admission to the market. In a bid to attract many customers with a lower price, the company ends up quoting a price of the share far much below its market value thus underpricing it.
This under pricing leads to anomalous first-day trading profits in initial public offerings as the share prices shoot abnormally on the first day as they are floated on the stocks market. This initial return, it’s understood, is more often money left on the table because the shares could still have been sold at a higher price hence raising more funds for the same stake in the company. We have seen that the company must choose the type of market to offload its share when it is planning its initial public offering. There are several markets in which this offering can take place.
However, there are several factors that will determine the primary decision made by the company. These factors are influenced by the fact that the markets provide the company with an opportunity to familiarize itself in the midst of the disclosure specifications and functionalities in exposing for communal companies. As a point of concern, the size of the Company is very important. This is because smaller companies will find that AIM market is best for them while the largest companies will find the Main Market suitable.
Hence the size of the company is an important factor in the determination of which market to offload the shares. Another factor is the age of the company since it’s more usual to float shares on the AIM market while it would need to have operated for at least three years to enter the Main market. The time and cost are very important because the drain on the management time and the floating cost must be considered. As a general rule, if the market is bigger then the disclosure will be more onerous and the professional costs will also be higher.
Lastly, the company’s objectives of seeking the floatation must be put into consideration because the conflicting needs of the business and the owners have a direct impact on the choice of markets, float method and choice of advisers. IPO Main market Capitalization In the main market we have 214 companies. Market capitalisation= 103562. 0071 million pounds The UK listing Authority has a requirement that for a company to be listed on the main market, among other things, it must have a minimum market capitalisation on issue of ?
700,000. If this is put into consideration, the companies that are not qualified for listing on the main market are… and those qualified are.
Under pricing of Initial Public Offering in the UK
A comparison between the Main market and the AIM market Data needed: Actual data of London Stock Exchange IPOs including Year 2004-2007. Data should be separated into 3 categories:
- AIM IPO: companies that are qualified for Main market listing criteria but choose to enter AIM instead
- AIM IPO: companies that doesn’t qualified for main market listing criteria with each company of all categories, the following data need to be obtained:
- First day return
- Initial return
- Market capital
References
- http://www. quotedcompaniesalliance. co. uk/market_comparison. asp
- http://www. rdg. ac. uk/Econ/Econ/workingpapers/emdp388. pdf
- Listing on the London Stock Exchange. URL http://www. londonstockexchange. com/NR/rdonlyres/2139CB47-DE3A-4A98-B3A5-49B9A01CAD0D/0/ListingaUKREIT. pdf March 5, 2008
