The IPO Story

The journey of three entrepreneurs from the ideation phase to scaling up and, eventually, a listing in the public markets.

- Poornima Kavlekar

Going public is a major move for an organisation and a sign of natural progression that comes with scaling up and market expansion. We talk to three entrepreneurs to understand how they took their company from the ideation phase to listing in the public markets, their professional routines one year before the IPO, the changes they had to make to the way they run their companies and what has changed post listing.

All entrepreneurs agree that there is no perfect timing for an IPO and it depends on the organisation’s positioning in the market place, economic conditions, thought process of the management team, and the overall goals of the business. Integrated business service provider, Quess Corp’s founder & Managing Director, Ajit Isaac, believes that a company is ready to go public, when it is ready to take responsibility and the company and management have a compelling investment thesis and are able to communicate the same to the broader market, effectively. For Dr. B. S. Ajai Kumar, founder of HealthCare Global Enterprises (HCG Enterprises), the IPO was more a sign that his organisation is maturing and entering the next phase.

For most organisations, getting ready for an IPO also meant that new systems and processes had to be put in place. After all, for the first time, there is a whole lot of compliance-related deliverables and also the management has to get used to ‘making progress’, every single quarter. However, PN Vasudevan, the founder of Equitas Holdings, says that the company always adhered to systems and processes, as if it were a public limited company, keeping in mind the nature of its business. In the story, he talks about some of the most important aspects needed to deliver a good IPO, some unique challenges faced by Equitas, and how the company was changing its underlying business model right around the time of listing.