Ipos

It's been only four years since First Rangeway Consulting went public, but to CEO Kenneth Charles, it seems like a lifetime. In the grand old days of...

Four years ago, Diane Ashton and Sundeep Lal were working together at MIT on a titanium extraction project. Durable and highly heat resistant, titanium...

Reports of the “eclipse of the public corporation” underestimate its institutional staying power and unique capacity for renewal. In his recent HBR article, Michael C. Jensen, a distinguished scholar of corporate finance and governance, argues for a revolution in the structure of ownership and control in the U.S. economy.1 I share many of his criticisms […]

Over the past 17 years I’ve worked with hundreds of executives to raise billions of dollars — from private equity to hedge funds to IPOs. I’ve seen road shows done right, but I’ve also seen every mistake in the book. In today’s see-saw economy, just as important as the timing of your IPO is being […]

It's been only four years since First Rangeway Consulting went public, but to CEO Kenneth Charles, it seems like a lifetime. In the grand old days of...

Start-ups seem to be getting bigger faster than ever--Uber is just one example of today's "unicorns," or private, venture-backed companies valued at a...

The value is in platforms, not products.

The Idea: When Google announced its intention to go public, in 2004, all eyes were on its unorthodox strategy. Here’s how it played out.

It's been only four years since First Rangeway Consulting went public, but to CEO Kenneth Charles, it seems like a lifetime. In the grand old days of...

Facebook “goes public” Friday, May 18th. Imagine what it might be like inside the company right now. Soon, paper stock option agreements tucked into employee compensation folders could erupt into cascades of real dollars. Maybe employees will soon barge through the doors and board shuttle busses to the BMW dealerships, software bugs be damned. Or […]

The kind of company it is influences investors and its valuation.

Dietzen and his team weighed the risks and advantages of going public.

Four years ago, Diane Ashton and Sundeep Lal were working together at MIT on a titanium extraction project. Durable and highly heat resistant, titanium...

Initial public offerings are expensive, and many owners turn to M&A instead. But a little-understood mechanism known as a tax receivable agreement can...

The market cares about a company's leaders, not just its metrics.

I am not pessimistic about Facebook's future. I have used the social network for eight years and continue to be impressed with Mark Zuckerberg's focus...

New organizations are emerging in its place—organizations that are corporate in form but have no public shareholders and are not listed or traded on organized exchanges. These organizations use public and private debt, rather than public equity, as their major source of capital. Their primary owners are not households but large institutions and entrepreneurs that […]

Whether, when, and how to take a family or individually owned company public are decisions that have faced a great many entrepreneurs. They have taken actions that have brought happiness and fulfillment to some and unhappiness to others. Perhaps people who are presently reflecting on such dilemmas can draw some useful thoughts from a study […]

Limited oversight, tons of money, and hype for days. What could go wrong?

In his classic 1989 HBR article “Eclipse of the Public Corporation,” Michael Jensen analyzed early leveraged buyouts and identified a new form of corporate organization, the LBO association. He believed it would outperform the traditional public company thanks to “pay-for-performance compensation systems, substantial equity ownership by managers and directors, and contracts with owners and creditors […]