ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: During the last two years, most of the Private Equity (PE) companies of Bangladesh have increased their investments significantly. Easy access to capital, as well as inexpensive leverage, has led to an increase in activity of PE buy-outs of market leaders with strong cash flow. The competition for objects that are for sale has amplified, which has resulted in price increases of the objects. The higher prices offered by the PE companies also affects the number of initial public offerings (IPO) on the Dhaka and Chittagong Stock Exchanges. One reason for the small number of current IPOs is that the objects simply have been valued higher by PE companies than they would do in an IPO.

PURPOSE: The purpose with this thesis is, from a shareholder’s point of view, to analyze and describe the reasons of making an IPO instead of selling to a PE company.

METHODOLOGY: Since the research is based on gathering and understanding information regarding specific persons’ choices and motives, a qualitative approach has been conducted.

CONCLUSION: All the main motives of the IPO could have been achieved by selling to PE Company, except the motive of attaining share liquidity. One of the attractive reasons for share liquidity is that shareholders easily can choose between reducing ownership, increasing ownership or remain with existing shares. Another attractive reason is that financial institutions normally become shareholders, which in turn increases the credibility of the company. Eight out of the ten companies had parallel plans to the IPO; most of them including a possible PE buy-out scenario. However, no PE Company offered a price high enough for the individual companies. Either the existing owners received a better IPO price, or the remaining owners believed that the stock exchange would out-perform the PE price offers in the long run. Theory means