Entrepreneurs do not consider the option of listing on the stock exchange because they think it is either too expensive or too lengthy, the director and founder of Kapital Minds, Laurentiu Stan told a Wednesday’s specialist event.
„There is a potential for growth and, at the same time, we should think about how to make entrepreneurs aware of the importance of listing on the stock exchange, because from the interactions we have had with entrepreneurs so far, they do not take considering this option, because it seems either too expensive or too lengthy. I emphasize, so it seems to them because they don’t know exactly what it entails. And here I see an opportunity for financial education, but I would go more towards entrepreneurial education, because we are talking about financial education for investors. We also need to have the entrepreneurial education part where we tell the entrepreneurs what are the advantages of a stock exchange listing and how they could benefit from different advantages. For example, access to additional capital they can have access. As long as they are listed, they can issue new shares or issue bonds for financing. Or the visibility they gain by listing on the stock exchange, higher than in the case of a closed company,” Laurentiu Stan told the Capital Market Forum, an event organized by Financial Intelligence.
He mentioned that, last month, Kapital Minds conducted a market survey on a sample of 400 entrepreneurs, selected from a group of 10,000 companies in Romania with private capital, turnover over 500,000 euros. Two of the 17 questions that were the subject of this survey were related to the topic of the capital market.
„The first question was what option would you approach in the event of an exit, and most of the entrepreneurs said that the full sale would be the first option, 67%. That is, two out of three entrepreneurs consider that the full sale is the best exit option from business. Then, the partial sale to an investor was the answer of 42% of the entrepreneurs and the transition to the management – 33% of the respondents answered that they also have in mind the listing on the stock market 12%, although it seems small, it seems to me that there is a great potential here, especially if we also relate to the following question: what do you think would be the biggest challenge in planning and achieving an exit? And 42% of entrepreneurs they answered that their biggest challenge would be to set a correct price for the business, and 26% that the most difficult would be to find a suitable buyer. Well, listing on the stock exchange would solve these problems from the start of the market, through the market mechanisms, and the buyers, of course, are the investors on the capital market”, declared Laurentiu Stan.
AGERPRES
