IPO Professionals
IPO Vital Signs is the unique web-based system for helping IPO professionals excel in four key aspects of the IPO process:
Market Your IPO Services
- Review your firm’s standings in the IPO Leadership Rankings.
- Evaluate your firm’s industry sector experience.
- Analyze law and accounting firms by office locations.
- Compare your firm’s IPO fee estimates with fees with other IPO firms.
- Evaluate experience of individual IPO lawyers.
- Conduct IPO Market Intelligence – Where should your firm increase its market share?
- Establish your objectives for IPO market share and IPO fee revenues
- Prepare your firm’s IPO fact book
- Draft press releases for international, national, regional and local distribution
- Select referral sources
Advise IPO Clients
Sample questions the IPO Vital Signs system can answer:
- Have there been any recent IPOs or initial filings in your client's industry sector?
- What is the financial profile of companies similar to your client that have gone public in any recent period?
- Your client has just been sued. Can your client still go public?
- Should your client reincorporate in Delaware?
- What security should your client’s company offer in its IPO?
- How many common and preferred shares should your client authorize?
- What size Board of Directors should a company like your client’s have when it goes public?
- Should your client’s independent directors be paid in cash, equity, or both when they go public?
- Will your client need to pay dividends after it goes public?
Negotiate the IPO Deal
Sample questions the IPO Vital Signs system can answer:
- What should the IPO offering amount be?
- What is the final pricing versus the initial filing pricing record of your client’s proposed lead manager?
- What are the recent price-to-revenue multiples granted by IPO underwriters your client is considering?
- How much will your client’s insiders have to give up when their company goes public?
- What dilution will public shareholders put up with?
- Can our team negotiate for an underwriting discount of less than 7%?
- The over-allotment option takes the risk out of the underwriting for the investment banks. Do all companies grant an overallotment option to their syndicate?
- Can insiders sell in the IPO offering?
- Your client’s long term shareholders don’t want to agree to an IPO lock-up. Can we use a multiple lock-up agreement?
- Can you suggest your client’s insiders use the IPO Green Shoe instead of waiting for the end of the lock-up?
- What percent of shares should I recommend my client include in their IPO directed share program?
Draft the IPO Prospectus
Use the IPO Prospectus Writer – A Guide to Drafting the IPO Prospectus to…
- Find Comparable IPO Companies. The short business descriptions used by other IPO data providers do not give enough information for me to determine if a company is truly a comparable. – How can I review their longer business descriptions to find comparability?
- Outline Your IPO Prospectus. I know the standard sections used in an IPO prospectus. – How can I quickly find out if I need to include additional sections?
- Draft the Risk Factors Section. We have prepared a first draft of the Risk Factors section. – How can I effectively and efficiently check risk factors used by comparable IPOs?
- Disclosing Recent Litigation. My client is currently involved in an intellectual property law suit. – Have there been recent IPOs with similar suits and how did they disclose it in the prospectus?
- Equity for Counsel. Aan investment partnership composed of certain current and former members of and persons associated with the issuer’s law firm beneficially own a portion of shares of the issuer’s common stock. – How have similar programs been disclosed in recent IPOs?
- Going Concern. My client was issued a going concern statement from its auditor. – In what sections of the prospectus should we disclose the going concern issue?