I have no actual idea, but I saw a comment the other day to the effect that: Choosing a good price is a) hard, because of the due diligence, and b) expensive,

I have no actual idea, but I saw a comment the other day to the effect that: Choosing a good price is a) hard, because of the due diligence, and b) expensive, because if you chose wrongly, you lose money (in an auction, this is called the winner's curse.) So the cost of estimating the price before the shares are on the market needs to be priced in to the initial sale price. Probably doesn't explain a 100% jump though, but in regard to the rich supposedly supporting free markets, I will remark that people's ability to be for things when they are applied to other people, and against them when applied to themselves, never ceases to amaze me.