Financial Trends: The IPO Myth

Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA --Ask the CEO of any leading emerging private cleantech company what their ultimate end-goal is and you'll often get a similar response: "To IPO the business, of course." For many entrepreneurs in the cleantech sector, the IPO exit is perceived as the Holy Grail and the yardstick by which to measure success.This is due to the prestige associated with creating and continuing to lead an independent publicly traded company as well as the perception that for cleantech companies, the public equity markets will value them at a substantial premium compared to the natural strategic buyers for these businesses. These strategic buyers include traditional industrial companies and multi-industry conglomerates such as GE, Siemens and ABB.