What's so great about being a public company in the first place? Shareholder meetings, quarterly filings, analyst recommendations, and the rest are all a big drag on actually running a company.
Granted, some companies need an exit event for their employees and other stakeholders (if they're still unprofitable at the time of IPO). You can also argue that, in the past, going public instilled a sense of discipline in young companies. But is it still worth the hassle?
> What's so great about being a public company in the first place?
Access to capital and liquidity for insiders. The spate of unicorns shows that not everybody needs to be public for the former, but I’m not sure about the latter — is there a reasonable secondary market for slack or uber common shareholders? I doubt it...but I don’t doubt the big banks are stepping up to make it worth the execs’ time to do these huge private deals.
Note that if you have enough shareholders (like a lot of employees holding small amounts equity) you’re essentially “public” as far as the SEC is concerned, you just may not be listed.
People with equity get rich when it goes public most of the time. The company also gets at lot of outside investment they can use to compete. Some go private again later, too.
Granted, some companies need an exit event for their employees and other stakeholders (if they're still unprofitable at the time of IPO). You can also argue that, in the past, going public instilled a sense of discipline in young companies. But is it still worth the hassle?