Practitioners' perspectives on the IPO process and the perils of flotation

A substantive literature examines the short- and long-run performance of share returns following an Initial Public Offering (IPO). However, the related issue of why companies seek to raise money through an IPO, or the factors that are important in this equity-issuing process, have attracted very little academic attention. The current paper seeks to redress this imbalance by investigating attitudes to these issues in the UK using two research methods: (i) a detailed questionnaire survey of companies that have recently undertaken an IPO; and (ii) interviews with managers and advisers who have been involved in the IPO process.