Page 298 - merged.pdf

CHAPTER 9 GROWING YOUR BUSINESS EMPIRE

Criteria for Taking a Company Public

Different stock exchanges have different requirements
before allowing a company to be publicly listed. For
example, to get listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange’s
(SGX) Mainboard, one of the criteria that your company
must fulfill is to have cumulative consolidated pre-tax
profits of at least $7.5 million for the last three years,
and a minimum pre-tax profit of $1 million for each
of those three years. For more information, go to
www.sgx.com

of time and allow me to cash out by selling some of my shares
through the stock market.

However, after much consideration, I have personally decided
not to take this route. The catch of listing your company is that
you will be converting it from a private enterprise to a public
company.

One of the things that I value most as an entrepreneur is
having the freedom to make whatever decisions I want without
being accountable to anybody. I can raise my salary whenever
I want and pay myself as much profits as I choose to at the
end of the year. All this changes once you run a public
company. You will have to answer to your shareholders (the
general public and financial institutions) and your board of
directors (that are also made up of independent directors) on
every major decision you make.

In addition, you will have the added pressure of reporting
ever increasing sales and profits to your investors every quarter.
The moment you miss profit targets, the market will punish

SECRETS OF BUILDING MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR BUSINESSES 289