From Kitchen Table to IPO – Select your Advisor carefully

Last week I talked about the strategy for going public that came out of the Churchill Club programme “from Kitchen table to IPO”. which we ran on the 17^th April. We were joined by Silvio Salom of Adacel Technologies Ltd , Leon Lau of Peoplebank Ltd and Michael Abela of Mobi Ltd ..

This week I wanted to pass on the main points (as noted by me) that were made by our panel around selecting advisors to go public with:

1. If you are thinking about going public, the market will soon know and you will be inundated with offers from potential advisors. But select those you want to interview from recommendations you get from your peers.

1. Select Advisors that you feel comfortable with. You are a novice in the area and simply can’t know everything. So make sure you trust your instincts as well as your spreadsheets.

1. Recognize that you are potentially swimming with sharks. As a general indicator – Large Advisor means large fees, small Advisor means small fees but no discipline.

1. Be prepared to cancel a contract if you don’t like where it’s going. The short term pain is worth the long term gain.

1. The best advice was to select Advisors that will be offering you advice not just up to the listing, but for future activity and capital raisings as well. Advisors that will be there for the long haul, not just dumping you as soon as you have left the altar. Consequently you should look at remunerating your advisors for long term success, not just listing.

1. Understand that once you have listed, you have moved up to a brand new bracket for costs and fees. The lawyer’s advice that took $5,000 may now cost $20,000.

Next week, I want to cover off the last topic – the new skills required as a public company CEO.

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