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>Good. Screw the bankers. Who needs them anyway? I’d say many companies who don’t have the same level of mindshare and brand awareness, perhaps?
by AmericanChopper 8y ago
>Good. Screw the bankers. Who needs them anyway?
I’d say many companies who don’t have the same level of mindshare and brand awareness, perhaps?
- gigatexal 8y agoSure. But I’d love to see a startup do something akin to ipo-as-service to distrupt the fat margins and conflicts of interest the on the side of the investment bankers
- AmericanChopper 8y agoI’m not sure you understand the role of bankers in IPOs. They financially underwrite the IPO, which is a huge financial risk. They’re also responsible for book building the entire thing, leveraging access to their network of institutional investors. Their fees aren’t cheap, but for a company that needs to IPO, they’re _often_ very worthwhile. I’m also not sure where you think the conflict of interest is, if they over price then then lose money, and if they underprice, then they lose money... I’m not sure this is a market that’s especially vulnerable to disruption either. Unless you wanted to create a network for book building directly with individuals, but I couldn’t see the value proposition for the listing company here, as getting the pricing right with unsophisticated investors sounds like an enormous risk for your averaging listing company.
- gigatexal 8y agoEh I guess you’re right on many points. There’s just something interesting about not using the traditional banks to get listed on the public market. And as more companies stay private but VC backend for longer perhaps we will see more of these less traditional ways of getting listed.