IPO Roundtripping - Public left holding the bag

The re-emergence of Dell as a Listed Company can only leave a sour taste in the mouth of anyone who supports a Market System that benefits the great majority and not just a few clever financial engineers.
For a long time Pro Governance has argued that it is much to easy to take listed companies 'private' (a misnomer in the case of 'Private Equity' backed deals as PE firms are mostly working with money from Joe Sixpack even if it is allocated by fiduciaries in the money management food chain).
Dell returns to public equity markets

Shareholder Democracy? For the pampered Few!

Markets are frothy, nothing new with that. And that the Bank of England just got the green light to pump another £ 750 billion (!!) of confetti money into the banking system will not help to cool things down. This money will surely reach the pockets of the 1% - an ill-thought out scheme, like the pathetic help (the building companies sell shoddy and overpriced houses) to buy scheme.
But the new issue for Eggfree Cake Box caught my eye. A valuation of more than £ 40 million, and the founders pocket £17 million - and probably pay way less than the 40% working stiffs have to give up on the proceeds of hard work. All thanks to people who play with other people's money - look up the list of institutional shareholders. Only caveat: the last financial statement I could find (March 2017) shows revenues of £8.6 million. And this is not a tech unicorn! One also has to wonder how many people really want to eat cakes without eggs.
The lesson: the way capitalism incentivises 'wealth creation' it might well work for the lucky few but it only aggravates the tensions that are constantly building and one day may tear it apart.
(22-June-2018)
Cake Box Holdings admitted to AIM

Biffa - milk cow for financial engineers

Biffa is another round-tripper from listed company, through the hands of financial engineers - banks, investors, lawyers, accountants and even some public relations firms - back to the stock exchange where Joe Public can have another go to make his (small) fortune - until the masters of the universe take the company away again. On another gravy train of fees....Is this a way to run a modern economy that is fair not to the few but to all?

Saudi Aramco IPO - suitable for Widows and Orphans?

Does it really matter where the listing takes place? The more important question must be - given the negligable influence of public shareholders, the uncertainty over the future energy scenario and the huge political risk surrounding the Middle East region, including Saudi Arabia itself, can regulators allow this IPO to end up in the portfolios of savers and pensioners? Of course, the financial intermediaries and Saudi Arabia's oligarchy would laugh all the way to the bank!
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/saudi-aramco-2018-ipo-plans-slowed-over-where-to-list-2017-06-14

Airbnb has no specific plans for IPO yet: CEO Chesky

Thank God for that. The IPO market is a huge destroyer of wealth - for the deplorables that are herded into overvalued new issues while the 0.1% run away with the proceeds. Perversion of Shareholder Democracy. And the retirement savings crisis will not be solved that way either.
Airbnb has no specific plans for IPO yet: CEO Chesky

Top shareholders back Alibaba's controversial corporate structure

Alibaba's 28 partners, mainly founders and senior executives, want to keep control over a majority of the board, even though they own only around 13 percent of the company. (Reuters)
It is quite amazing that the authorities in Hong Kong, traditionally not known for strict corporate governance, make a stand and bloc this move while other, much older , financial centres with a reputation to lose are in a race to offer more 'flexibility' in order to chase the IPO business.

This raises a number of questions
1 - is there a race to the bottom in regulatory affairs, contrary to all intentions proclaimed by global regulators?
2 - what is the role of board - should Management pick directors (effectively controlling itself)?
3 - should different voting rights be allowed, and if so under what circumstances?
4 - what obligations - if any - do the financial 'advisors' facilitating the IPO have? are they responsible to shareholders or do they only have to look after their own narrow financial interests?
27-Sept-2013

Facebook Share Issue: Where are global regulators?

One amazing aspect of the Facebook deal that is promoted by Goldman Sachs is the fact that global regulators seem to be completely absent - despite the fact that possible questions by the SEC in the United States stopped the placement to US domestic investors. Given the noise made by politicians in all civilised financial markets all over the world about the need for more protection of investors and savers this silence is really DEAFENING and shows how much regulators are behind the curve.
(03/02/2011) 

New Look: Thanks a billion!

News that New Look will do an IPO - again - is another slap in the face of gullible institutional shareholders who agreed to a buy-out by management and private equity funds in 2004. Now the public will again be asked to pay vast profits to them - courtesy to their fiduciaries in the investment and pension management industry and a dysfunctional market for corporate control.

Blackstone getting bullish?

News that The Blackstone Group may plan to list up to eight of its portfolio companies in the near future is seen by some commentators as 'bullish'. We would rather think that the seller must have a cautious view of the upside potential for share prices, - why else would Blackstone want to sell now? Apart from the question of why anyone would want to purchase recycled merchandise from a well-informed insider this announcement of a wholesale clear-out of the portfolio brings the question of the purpose of the 'private' equity 'industry' to the forefront. We would argue that the business in its present form is neither 'private' (nearly all its money is coming from Joe Public) nor an 'industry'. If anything, it is a clever scheme to make a small number of people (very) rich at the expense of the wider investing public that has the privilege to repurchase businesses that were previously sold too cheaply by the fiduciaries handling their investments. Recent studies have also put in question the rationale for investing in IPO's, and the old saying 'Buyer Beware' should be remembered.