IPO Services – Your successful IPO
Financing growth. Optimise ownership structure.
Going public is a major decision that fundamentally and sustainably changes a company and its structures and processes. Comprehensive preparation for the Initial Public Offering (IPO) is essential for success. It doesn’t matter how the company accesses the capital market, be it through a traditional IPO, a SPAC transaction or a direct listing. It is not only important to prepare for the intensive IPO Execution phase – the real endurance test begins afterwards. The company is scrutinised by both new investors and the public. It must fulfil their expectations from day one. This means meeting legal and regulatory requirements, maximising operational efficiency and delivering high-quality financial and non-financial data. In addition, transparent communication with all stakeholders, such as investors and analysts, business partners or regulators, is essential for long-term success. PwC supports issuers and their owners on their way to the capital market.
Every IPO is unique and brings with it individual challenges. Read below to find out what the most important conclusions from our extensive experience are.
Start early
Many companies regret not having started preparing for their Initial Public Offering earlier. An early start allows a thorough analysis and structured approach without overburdening internal resources. As a result, many obstacles can be removed in advance, which simplifies and shortens the IPO Execution process and enables companies to take advantage of favourable market opportunities.
Strengthen your team
The realisation of an IPO requires enormous effort and time, which poses particular challenges for companies in times when resources are already scarce. In addition to day-to-day business, employees, especially in the finance department, have to deal with a large number of enquiries and data requirements. You should therefore strengthen your team at an early stage to protect your employees from overload and at the same time enable further operational growth. Especially in complex areas such as the finance function, the use of external resources is also sensible and widespread. It goes without saying that they should be experienced and qualified in order to ensure rapid onboarding.
Choose the right advisors
Without the support of various advisors (lawyers, banks, auditors, PR consultants, etc.), an IPO is almost inconceivable. However, choosing the right partners at the right time is often underestimated.
In order to be able to draw on the necessary expertise at any time, it is essential to know the process, the milestones and the challenges of an IPO in detail. There should also be a good understanding of the roles and tasks of the individual advisors.
A structured selection process that reflects the specific requirements of the company is crucial. Once the right team of advisors has been found, clear communication of your objectives and interests is paramount. This allows each consultant to utilise their individual skills in the best possible way for the IPO - for your success.
Understand the expectations of the stakeholders
Many companies start the IPO process without knowing the expectations and needs of investors and how they can fulfil them. An IPO can be compared to the market launch of a new product. Here, too, it is important to understand the requirements and expectations of the target customers, to know potential competitors and to develop strategies and arguments in order to stand out positively.
Comprehensive benchmarking with comparable listed companies can help to understand investor expectations in terms of transparency, communication and operational performance. This is the first step in developing a compelling equity story backed by facts and figures.
Assess the status quo
An IPO has far-reaching consequences for a company and is time-consuming and cost-intensive. A well-structured process with clear objectives and steps that are aligned with the goals of the issuer and its owners is therefore crucial.
A readiness assessment can serve as a starting point to shed light on all key aspects of the company and take investor expectations into account in addition to legal and regulatory requirements. The result is a detailed project plan that makes the company fit for the capital market.
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Holistic approach for your capital market presence
PwC’s readiness assessment is part of our holistic IPO approach, which thoroughly analyses your company and its processes, systems and structures and compares them with the legal and regulatory requirements and investor expectations.
Our years of expertise then enable us to align the identified gaps with your IPO timeline and develop a customised project plan that takes into account your individual needs and objectives.
The use of innovative digital tools and proven processes ensures high efficiency and minimises additional workload for your team. With our straightforward and pragmatic approach, we will guide you through the entire process – right up until the bell rings and beyond.
Project management
Effective project management is crucial to the success of an IPO. We support you in developing your project plan and governance framework, monitor progress and milestones and coordinate your internal project team to ensure your resources are optimally utilised. We also provide practical support where necessary. This allows you to set the key priorities, allocate resources and focus on operations.
Capital markets strategy
Our Capital Markets team advises you on strategic issues relating to your IPO, from analysing various stock exchanges and transaction structures to selecting the advisory team. Together we define the objectives of the transaction and create the conditions for your success.
Finance function and reporting
We help you to adapt your finance function and reporting to the requirements of the capital market and the needs of capital market investors. In addition, we support you in the preparation of required financial statements (unless we act as your auditor). We also advise you on the development of relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) and data to optimise the management of your business and to underpin your equity story. By introducing suitable processes and systems, we make your company fit for efficient and reliable reporting, including digital tools as part of the finance transformation.
Preparation of the prospectus
Alongside the analyst presentation, the prospectus is the decisive document for the successful marketing of your share s and should contain a convincing equity story, underpinned by meaningful financial information and KPIs. The profit forecast, which is increasingly presented in the prospectus, frames the expectations of potential investors and other stakeholders.
Our experienced team can advise you on how to deal with the numerous data and information requirements that arise in the course of preparing a prospectus. We support you in the preparation (or review) of financial information and analyses, and work with you to develop meaningful KPIs. We are also happy to liaise with your auditor in this regard. In this way, your prospectus becomes a meaningful and convincing component of your marketing.
Sustainability reporting
Sustainability reporting is also becoming increasingly important for stakeholders, especially in light of the European Green Deal and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
As with financial reporting, we also support you in analysing materiality to identify the necessary KPIs and data points. In doing so, we take into account the requirements of the CSRD, the EU Taxonomy and the various voluntary frameworks. Through a comprehensive gap analysis, we ensure that all relevant information is recorded and support you in implementing suitable processes and systems to ensure reliable and rapid reporting. Here too, we coordinate our activities closely with your auditor.
Other IPO services
We also offer you support with a wide range of other IPO services. These include the legal and tax structuring of the transaction as well as the further development of your IT-, internal controls-, tax- and HR functions. Our experienced lawyers and tax advisors are on hand to ensure that all aspects of your IPO are covered.
“With our holistic approach, we accompany you on your way to the stock exchange and help you to successfully master all challenges. Your success is our goal, and we are always at your side with our expertise and experience.”
Stephan Wyrobisch,Partner Capital Markets at PwC GermanyRelated content
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