• Access to More Capital - Investors look for security before putting millions of dollars into a company and one thing that helps assure them is a track record with investors and regulators.  Investors place a higher valuation on public companies because of their liquidity, which increases their ability to get some or all of their money back at some point in the future.  Also, public companies have already had to prepare a sound business plan and audited financials and go through the steps with securities regulators to go from private to public status as a company.  This makes the ability to raise large capital investments much easier than for a private company and capital investment may be just what your company needs to accomplish those big plans you have.

• Increased Liquidity for You and Your Investors - When you want some extra cash personally or at some point want to move on to another venture, you will find that being an owner of a public company will make it much easier for you to do this than with a private company.  Your stock ownership in a public company gives you the ability to sell your shares through a public market.  In a private company, you will find it is often very difficult to find a buyer and get a fair price for your shares in your company and you probably already know that it is sometimes not easy to take extra money out of the company when you need it.

• Mergers and Acquisitions - If you wish to expand your sales, income or market share by buying out a competitor or acquiring a company with a product or service line that complements your own, you will have an additional tool to do this when you have a public company.  This tool is the buying power of your company's stock and often you can make the acquisition using your stock as a form of currency since it is already valued by the market.  And don't forget that you could also have a large competitor want to acquire your company for a large sum of money.  This becomes much easier to do when you're a public company, because you have a known valuation.

• Stock Options for Employees - As a public company, you can provide benefits to productive employees and also entice good managers to work for you through stock options.  Since there is a known value to your stock, this makes it much easier for anyone to see what the financial benefit to them would be from these options

If this sounds like what your company needs but you've been hesitant because you've heard that the costs and time involved in taking your company public outweigh the benefits, then you will definitely want to hear about how a "mini-IPO" might be the solution for you.

Mini IPO Introduction