Sweden's IPO story

Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to IPO Stories, a podcast that explores the tracks to IPOs for companies and their stakeholders. Through interviews with professionals who have led companies to public markets, we will learn about what it takes to IPO a business. The do's and the don'ts before, during, and after a listing process. I'm Gotye.

Speaker 2: I'm Per, co-founders of Almus Investment Management, a Europe-based equity manager.

Speaker 1: Over the last 10 years, more than 500 companies have listed in Sweden. This is the same number of IPOs as France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain combined, for a country with a population of only 10.6 million people. In October, Stockholm hosted the IPO of Very Sure, the largest in Europe this year, in a transaction close to $4 billion. But Sweden is also the home of a vibrant small and midcap equity market, with strong participation from pension funds, local asset managers, and retail investors. There are many lessons to learn from Sweden's success in fostering broad equity market participation. Today, we're joined by Adam Kostyal, the President of Nasdaq Stockholm and the head of listings in Europe for Nasdaq, to learn more about Sweden's capital markets journey. Before we start, we would like to remind our listeners that our discussion is not financial advice, nor an investment recommendation, nor a solicitation to buy or sell any financial instruments, or an offer for financial services or any other transaction. The information contained in the recording has no contractual value and are destined for informational purpose only. Almus Investment Management and the participants in this podcast may have holdings in the companies being discussed.

Speaker 2: Adam, welcome to the Almus office and a pleasure to have you here in person today in Paris. We're not far away from the Paris Stock Exchange. So maybe you can start by explaining a bit your role and the history of why you chose to join Nasdaq.

Adam Kostyal: Well, first of all, great to be here and I enjoy your podcasts and and of course, I enjoy you investing in our listed companies. So, it's great to meet in person and to have this opportunity to talk. I've joined Nasdaq quite a few years ago. It's close to 20 now, actually. But the beauty of Nasdaq is it's continuously evolving. At the time when I joined, it was OMX, which was only the Nordic exchanges and then 2008, we merged with Nasdaq. And it's been a great marriage over time. And the company has evolved a lot. We're in more marketplaces, we're providing more services on a global basis. And my role has evolved as well. I used to be on the technology side, providing technology to exchanges on a global basis. And then I shifted to the exchange side of the business and headed up the listing business now for roughly 11 years and then transition into the role as head of the Nasdaq Stockholm Exchange roughly a year and a half ago.

Speaker 2: So we're going to talk about Sweden, but Nasdaq is not just Sweden and in Europe, right? That's seven markets.

Adam Kostyal: Exactly. So we own and operate seven exchanges in Europe, focused on the Nordic and Baltics and Iceland. So we have the Stockholm Exchange, we have the Copenhagen Exchange, we have the Helsinki Exchange, we have the Baltic exchanges, and then we also have the Icelandic exchanges. So we own and operate exchanges in the Nordics. These are the only exchanges that we own and operate in Europe. And then we have of course, we have the US exchange that we operate. But then most of the other things that we do is more around technology and being a partner and technology provider to other exchanges globally. So roughly 140 exchanges or marketplaces, clearing houses, CSDs use our technology. A lot of that technology is actually developed originally from Stockholm. So we have around 1,000 employees in the Stockholm office. Many of them are on technology side, but that technology business has grown a lot. And most recently, you know, not only organically, but also through acquisitions. And one of the most recent acquisitions that we did was Adensa. We actually have an office just a few blocks down from where you sit. And we're now a global operator of, you know, clearing and risk systems for exchanges, but clearing houses, but also banks. So it's really diversifying on our growth model in terms of not only being an exchange and market operator, but also being a global technology provider in the Fintech space.

Speaker 2: Great. Now, if we talk about Sweden has kind of been a lot in the news of Sweden being one of the top IPO markets in Europe this year, at least, definitely, but also over a longer time period. Can you maybe start by giving us a bit of an idea of what activity you've seen in Sweden over the last last few years?

Adam Kostyal: Well, I think it's been a unfortunately a well-hidden secret in the sense. I think we realized it for a long time. I'm not sure Sweden realized it until Mario Draghi wrote on page 85 in his report on the competitiveness of Europe that, you know, Sweden is really punching above its weight and it should be a role model for the rest of Europe. And of course, this was the famous article in Financial Times around, you know, the Swedish exchange being the envy of Europe. But I think fundamentally, if you go back to where Sweden, you know, has its roots, it's an important discussion, an important discussion that Europe should have because what Sweden has done successfully, it can always be better and that's a discussion that we're trying to drive in Sweden now that let's not focus on how good we are, but rather focus on how great we can become. But ultimately, we've allowed for households to take risk. And that means essentially exposing them to the equity markets. So there's really a collaboration between the governments and the labor unions that pension funds should be in the capital markets and households should be exposed to the capital markets and meaning that their pensions should be invested in the capital markets. And the philosophy is that it's not a question of savings, it's a question of investments because if you invest, then you will have more savings over time and there will be a return of investments. If you look at Europe, I think the number that's circulating is around 11 trillion euros lying in bank accounts, which is not creating growth. And the question is, how do you unleash those 11 trillion euros in Europe and move them into more risk prone investments? And really that is a fundamental European issue that I think Sweden can be a role model of how we have achieved it because that is in my view, the key driver.

Speaker 2: And how have you actually achieved that in Sweden? Because obviously we know about the Swedish pension funds being quite large, but it's not just that, right?

Adam Kostyal: No, it's not only the pension funds. I think the beauty of the Swedish pension funds is that they're exposed to the capital markets. They're not exposed only to the local markets. There tends to be a local, you know, a domestic bias, but they're exposed to global equity markets. But I think what we've done is that not only have we exposed the pension markets or the pensions systems, but we've also created a fundamental equity culture, meaning that every household understands that if they are invested in the equity market, there will be a return. So you really see a full engagement around all households being invested not only actively, but also passively in terms of investing towards the equity markets on a global basis. So I think that in itself has created this equity culture, which then the Swedish government has been quite clever in the sense, okay, how do we make it easier for them to manage these investments? And one of the initiatives that's now being discussed on a European level is the investment savings accounts. And these investment savings accounts, it's not necessarily the best tax incentive structure. There's probably maybe some better tax incentive structures across Europe or globally, but the beauty of the investment savings account is that there's very little risk of doing things wrong. You can be active in the market, you can trade as much as you want, but then you get a flat tax based on your ownings in that portfolio or in that savings account. So there's no risk in terms of doing something wrong. I think a lot of private people find it complex to invest in the capital markets. The Swedish government has been very clever in taking away that complexity with this investment savings account, but they've also created a lot of predictability in the tax revenue that they get as well. So it's a benefit for the government, but it's a benefit for the individuals that they can more actively participate in the equity market. And now the European Union is advocating for this and they've rolled out an example that, you know, that should be introduced on a local basis in each market. I think Poland just announced that they will roll it out. I think this is what we need. We need more activation around retail culture across Europe. I think that will benefit Europe over time.

Speaker 2: And in Sweden, has that taken the form then of a Swedish household directly owning equities or mostly investing in funds that then invest locally?

Adam Kostyal: That's a very good question. I think it's a combination of direct investment and passive investment. Passive in the sense that they're also investing a lot of an active funds, you know, so basically they've taken the position that they might not be the best experts at what is the right flavor at the time. So we've built up this fund industry, which is very strong. And of course, a strong supporter to our ECM and IPO market that you have many of these small and mid-sized institutional funds that are taking active roles in the markets. Of course, that trend has become more passive in the sense that many of the funds are now following index and etc. But fundamentally, they are active investors that want to take an active stake in each company and play an active role in participating as important in the company as a listed company. So I think this is a key to the success of our capital markets is that it's not only about retail, it's not only about large pension funds. It's about this whole depth of institutional money that's willing to participate in the ECM market or the IPO market.

Speaker 2: You had the IPO of Very Sure, which was a big win, I guess, for Sweden, for the stock exchange. But that's not the only IPO you had in Sweden this year.

Adam Kostyal: No, we've had quite a few IPOs and of course, Very Sure is a big win for Europe overall. I mean, it's a European player. It's important that we get these big companies to transition into the public markets. I think that's one global trend that we're seeing is that the primary markets have become much stronger. Companies grow to a certain size outside the public markets in a way that we haven't seen before. And now that they decide to transition out of the private equity hands, the public markets is really in many cases the only place for them to transition out. And it's been great to see Very Sure choose to go into the public markets. The fact that they chose Nasdaq Stockholm is a fantastic win for the Swedish market because we have been great at doing small, medium-sized IPOs. And I think there's a misperception that we only do small, medium-sized IPOs because we have such a great range of companies that have done these IPOs. But in reality, our market is even better when we have larger IPOs because our asset managers want to really engage with larger ticket allocations or larger sizable options or IPOs. And when Very Sure showed up and wants to allocate, you know, I think it was a 3.2 billion IPO transaction, it was the ability to really engage all flows of capital. They were able to engage 60,000 retail. They were engaged, you know, allowing small, medium-sized institutions to participate, but of course, global institutions on a global basis. So you had the whole range of retail, smaller institutions, mid-size, national, international, larger, smaller, you know, mid-size. I think that's something that we see quite uniquely because our strength typically has been the last few years and this year as well, is the ability to do these smaller IPOs. And so we've had Noba, we've had Asker, we've had Apotea, a full range where basically they can go out to the market and feel comfortable that they can find long equity, institutional money that's willing to participate in smaller IPOs.

Speaker 2: And when you have a company like Very Sure, I'm sure you talked to them quite a lot before they chose to list in Stockholm. When you have such a pan-European and now quite global company making a choice like that, what do you feel were the pros and cons of listing in Stockholm versus listing somewhere else?

Adam Kostyal: That's a good question. I think it was a good test of waters for us as well. It was an excellent conversation both with the owners, Heman Friedman and Very Sure. I think fundamentally, Very Sure could have chosen to list anywhere in Europe. They don't have a US presence, so listing in the US was out of the really, it wasn't really in scope for them. But if you look at their optionality across Europe, at the day of the IPO, there's such a demand for liquidity, you know, there's a lot of asset managers that want to invest and that have the capacity to invest. But I think the argument that we brought to them was really, it's not only the day of the IPO that's important because you can execute that IPO fairly successfully anywhere. What is important is who's there on the day after. And I think that's where they understood the depth of our markets and that there's such a long-term equity culture in the Nordic markets and also a long-term equity culture of international investors. If you look at the sizable companies that we have, Investor AB, Atlas Copco, Astra, ABB, there's a whole range of companies that are listed on Nasdaq Stockholm. More than 50% are owned by international institutions. They like the Swedish governance model, they like the transparency and the clarity of investing in Swedish markets. So there's a whole range of investors that enjoy investing in companies on the Stockholm Exchange. Plus they would manage to get the whole retail participation, which is quite unique. And they had this whole range of institutional investors, small, medium-sized and large to participate. And I think they're very happy with the execution of the IPO. Some of the things that we discussed with them is, okay, you're listing in Sweden, how is that relevant for us? The Swedish Krona, is that a question that we will get from international investors? They chose to list in Euro. It's been very successful. If we look at the trading, the spreads are fantastic, the volumes are fantastic. They're trading almost as one of the most liquid shares on our exchange. It goes to show that both retail and local investors were keen on investing in the company and weren't so focused on in which currency. And they get index inclusion, so they get the whole full range even though they are listing in Stockholm and not listing in the Swedish Krona. So we've done a lot of different things. We opened up the Euroclear links again, which means that they could list as ordinary share. So we had a whole range of different discussions with them to clarify some of the things that they were looking for and that we could then cater for.

Speaker 2: And you have some other companies that are Swedish. I mean, Sweden has been the home of a lot of significant tech successes over the last few decades, but that have still chosen them to go list in Nasdaq US. Spotify in 2018, I guess it was, Klarna more recently. How do you feel that the companies are then making that choice between listing in Europe and the US?

Adam Kostyal: That's a very good question. And I think, you know, of course, each company is different. You know, first of all, as a Swede and as a European, I'm extremely proud that we have these fantastic entrepreneurs and these fantastic companies that have grown into global brands and global companies and have succeeded so well in what they're doing. So I think at the end of the day, we have to reflect on that this is the most important dimension. But of course, I'm running an exchange, so I need to also look at the dimension of where they list. And when I look at Spotify, at the time they listed, they were a growth company without profitability. I think there was a point in time where Europe was kind of trying to navigate what is this phenomenon, you know, how do we value these kind of companies? How do we give them the appreciation that the US seemed to be giving them, you know? And then I think the other aspect is that Spotify was a global brand at the time. They had penetrated the US and global markets step by step. So I think they had a platform both from a brand recognition point of view and they had this profile of growth and lack of profitability, which we were trying to understand, you know, and that's where Europe, I think, needs to catch up a bit in terms of being able to price and support companies that have this kind of on the far edge of the risk curve, so to speak. And of course, the story has told its own tale. It's been a great success story. Would Spotify have been the same company it is today? I think it would have been a different question. Then I think I would have felt much more comfortable saying, you can do this IPO in Sweden because at the end of the day, the international capital that wants to participate in the Spotify IPO, they would have been eager to invest in them independent of Stockholm or New York. Klarna is a different story. I mean, Klarna, I feel more comfortable saying that they could have done their IPO successfully in Stockholm. You know, Sebastian, I'm not sure if you followed this, but he moved his Klarna shares into Flat Capital, which is listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm Exchange, which is his investment vehicle, investing in AI companies. So I think he has a commitment to the Swedish market. I think he would have felt comfortable being a regulated business in in Sweden and having a bond in the Swedish capital markets that he could have executed financially in the same way. I think the one challenge Europe has is that we don't have the single market yet. And I think the fact that he's successfully commercialized his offering in the US, I think he sees the platform of being listed in the US also as a vehicle to increase his commercialization. So to grow more aggressively commercially in the US and the visibility and the brand recognition and the credibility the listing brings, maybe will give him more transactions to grow the business. I can't argue against that, but I think Europe needs to focus, you know, how do you sell the same service across 27 markets? How do we make the single market in Europe more attractive? So companies that are scaling, they also see the focus on not only scaling in the US, but scaling in in Europe because we have a great market. We have as an economy as a whole, it's almost bigger than the US, bigger population. Why not focus making sure that it's easier to scale services across Europe and then therefore make the companies more relevant from a European perspective.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very true. I mean, in terms of growth, if you get the US, you get one single market, right? And it you advertising hits hits the entire population right away versus Europe, you have to basically build it market by market and it's much more challenging.

Adam Kostyal: Exactly.

Speaker 2: Speaking of single market, one topic that seems to come out of the Draghi report is, should there be a single European stock exchange? What are your thoughts about this?

Adam Kostyal: Well, I'm not sure Mario Draghi believes in it himself. I I think he was trying to provoke something. And I think Europe could benefit from being more homogeneous. More homogeneous in the sense that I think no service is best served by having one operator. I think there should always be competition. The other aspect, I think, which is super key here is that when you are an exchange provider in the US, you're competing for the same flow. Here in Europe, you're not competing for the same flow. There's a lot of domestic restrictions in terms of how that flow of capital takes place. And I think Europe should start by looking at how do we make that capital flow more seamlessly across borders? How do we create more interoperability between markets? And I think there it's more focused on the post-trade because in the US, you have one post-trade infrastructure both on the clearing and settlement side. And I think that would be beneficial for Europe. I'm not saying that should be one post-trade infrastructure, but more interoperability, maybe a few less providers, more homogeneous interpretations of regulation so that investors and companies can navigate these different markets in a different way. And then maybe a more regional approach on the exchanges rather than having one exchange. I think that would be more beneficial. At the end of the day, our role as an exchange provider is not only to serve the largest companies, it's also to serve the smaller companies. And I think maybe a, you know, a pooling of exchanges would serve a few better, but I think as a whole, it would serve the capital markets better to have more regionalization rather than having one exchange for Europe.

Speaker 2: How do you beat this domestic bias? Because we all have it, right? I mean, your Swedish pension funds, they invest globally, but they invest more in Sweden. And if you look at retail investors, they will typically tend to prefer names that they read about in their local press, etc. How do you think we can kind of get past that?

Adam Kostyal: Well, I mean, it's interesting when Europe or the EU was discussing the ISK, the Swedish government was very advocate about the fact that you should not put any restrictions. There was ideas that this ISK should be restricted to European investments, etc. So Sweden has a very liberal view on how capital should flow. And I think that's a very healthy approach because at the end of the day, you shouldn't restrict flows. But at the end of the day, there will always be a domestic bias because I think that's where you read the news, that's where you follow, that's where you follow the trends, you know who's behind the company, who's driving the company. I think it's not necessarily that you should fight the domestic bias so much, but I think the larger pools of capital that can flow and that is sophisticated, that has the capacity to cover other shares and cover other markets. There you should look at where is the restriction. And I think in terms of engaging retail, I mean, you see now companies such as Revolut, Klarna, many others are starting to offer share investments. It's going to diversify. We should be able to create a more, you know, European retail book in an easier way. But I think more sophisticated money should be able, their capital should be able to flow and we should look over that from a European perspective, so it's not so much money stopping at each border. But overall, and then you have the other dimension is that you have 27 interpretations of MAR in Europe, you know, is that healthy? How do we agree on one interpretation? You have foreign direct investment now. You have different interpretations across the European market. Is that beneficial for Europe as an investor base? So we need to make sure that we are more seamlessly attracting international investors and making it more easy for them to navigate and also for issuers if they want to cross-list to access other pools. How do they make sure that we mitigate the fact that they're not exposing them to different types of interpretation of the same regulation? So I think there are different things that we can fix and over time we should look at a more a broader vision of, you know, letting capital flow across Europe. There will always be a domestic bias. A bit like there's a US domestic bias. We should make sure that there's more flow and then money will find its way.

Speaker 2: A bit like companies in Europe maybe looking at the US listing as one way to go if you're a tech company. I'm sure there's quite a lot of small midcap companies in Europe who are actually looking at Sweden as an alternative because they see that there's a lot of success and that small midcap IPOs are actually being done in your market. Do you have any good examples of sort of European companies coming to list in Sweden even though they're not really domestic and that being a success or?

Adam Kostyal: Yeah, we have a few examples which are I think relevant. I think the issue is that let's say if you have a German company that's looking at its peers because their peers are not domestic peers, they're international peers, you know, within different sectors, whether it's Fintech, Clean Tech, whatever sector it is, they're looking at international peers. I think there was a bit of a sense of frustration in Germany. I'm pointing out Germany as an example, but the whole DACH region. You know, 2021, we listed, I think in Stockholm, we had 150 IPOs or something like that. In Germany, that year, you had 20. Now, somewhere in between there is probably the right number because at there there was a willingness to invest in you know, there are huge risk appetite at that time. But the fact that you only listed 20 companies in Germany and that the fact is that you're in a situation where listing a company below 1 billion euros in market cap is a very complex process because a lot of institutional money will not get out of bed unless they can allocate a ticket of 100 million or something like that. And a lot of advisors will then not engage because they don't see the IPO as a viable route in the local market. You end up in a situation where you look at the Swedish market. 90% of our IPOs or 80% of our IPOs over the last few years has been below 1 billion euros in market cap. These are significant companies that then have continued their growth in the public markets, allowing many more asset managers and many more retail to participate in that growth and pension funds, etc. That's the dynamic that we want to create. So we've had companies like Verve, we've had companies like Coinshare that are not domestic companies that have chosen to list in our market and we encourage that. Is it open for any company? No, you know, each advisor and investor has to make its decision, but we encourage other companies from other markets to explore our market as an alternative. Now, at the end of the day, I think Europe would benefit to become more active to support smaller companies as well because I think that would create value for their economies as well. But that's something we can't fix. So in the meantime, we're encouraging companies to look at Stockholm. Important that they understand what are the key ingredients for them to succeed in Stockholm. To your topic around the US, it's an interesting one. I think if you look at the recent examples and, you know, historic examples, for those that have succeeded, there are certain ingredients that make it very successful. But not all have succeeded. And also the US market has become much more selective in terms of deciding which company fits best. So there's a lot of capital you leave behind by going to the US, a lot of European local capital. And the company needs to really assess the value of that. But if the company has a strong commercial presence, strong brand awareness, certain size to manage the costs and risk of the US market, there are, of course, many great success stories, but it's not a one size fits all. So I really encourage companies to have a strong local discussion before they engage in just automatically assuming that the US will be the solution for better valuations and long-term support.

Speaker 2: It's true that even though anybody can invest in the US, the truth is it's quite difficult to actually build up your European investor base with a US listing, right?

Adam Kostyal: I mean, that's the challenge we have. I just take it as an example, independent of the US or anywhere else outside of Sweden. If I take some of these larger Swedish pension funds, they would allocate, for example, for a Swedish IPO, I'll just choose any number here, just as a symbolical way. They would allocate 100 million in the Swedish IPO. If it's outside Sweden, they would probably allocate only 50. That's a lot of money that you're leaving behind. And in some cases, they won't be able to even invest. So from that perspective, it's a lot of loyal and long equity only money that you're leaving behind if you're starting to engage in that process. So you need to understand the risk of that. But of course, again, Spotify is a great example. There are some great examples, but it's not a one size fits all. And each company that engages in a potential US listing needs to understand how does it build a book with long equity only as well.

Speaker 2: Now, if you look at the development of the Nordic markets, your markets over the next few years, how is that looking with the companies you're talking to today?

Adam Kostyal: Everybody expected that 2025 would be the year that the IPO markets would open up. The reality is that, you know, with liberation day and with other dynamics, the markets stopped after Q1. So we had a great start. We had a great end to 2024 with a good series of IPOs that took place. They all performed well. We had a great start with 2021 and then we had a break. Now we have, you know, we of course had Very Sure in October. We've had a number of other IPOs coming out to the market. We had Noba before Very Sure and then we have another a few IPOs before year end. I'm optimistic about 2026. I think what we will see on a European level is that we will see some more significant IPOs spread out across Europe. But I think what will determine our Nordic markets and particularly the Swedish market is this continuous flow of smaller mid-sized listings and we will also have some larger listings, but this continuous diversity of sector and owner type, size that will continuously flow to. And I think this is important because then you create this engagement around the market. There's a flow, there's an engagement towards the retail, there's engagement around the advisors, there's engagement around the investors that there's an expectation that there will always be continuous activity. If you just have these pockets of one or two listings happening every now and then, you don't really create that long-term engagement. So my prediction for 2026 is that we might not have the largest IPO next year, like we did this year with Very Sure, but we will definitely see a good flow of interesting companies coming to market. And, you know, one sector that's opening up is of course the defense sector. There's a lot of appetite, it's very capital intensive. That's a sector that we will probably see materialize on the exchange. And we already have Saab that's listed in Sweden. We have Saab, that's listed in Sweden. We have Mildeff, we have a number of different components. We have a lot of interesting companies that are providers to the whole AI industry, you know, you have Munters, you have ABB, you have many of these companies that are coming to market or they are already in the market, but they're strong participants in that growth. But then of course, the one question that everybody's asking, when is the biotech market going to open up? Because it's traditionally been a key driver for many exchanges on a global basis. And we're hoping that a lot of this risk appetite will spill over not only to from larger companies to smaller companies, but also across different sectors and we're hoping that the healthcare sector opens up as well. So I'm optimistic about 2026. Hopefully less geopolitical tension and more predictability and and more favorable markets.

Speaker 2: We talked about private equity funds and their exits. In Europe, I think about 40% actually of IPO activity is from private equity funds. You had the statistic that there's actually only 6 to 7% of exits that are in the public markets. But in Sweden, it seems like that's much higher.

Adam Kostyal: I think one thing that we have in our favor in the Nordics is that we have some of the strongest private equity in the Nordic markets, or on a European level, is in the Nordic markets. So, you have, you know, I'm not going to name the companies, but the one that really stands out is, of course, EQT that's listed and now is like one of the largest players on a global basis. But you have a whole range of these larger, mid-sized private equity players. And I think this is important for Europe, that we have strong owners with a long-term vision of creating stronger companies in different sectors. I think what Europe needs to focus on is how do you create a better symbiosis between private capital and the public capital, because that's where you really create value. If you look at companies that have grown in the public markets, they created more jobs, raised more money, created more innovation, etc., etc. So, at the end of the day, if you look at the private equity landscape across Europe, what really stands out on a Nordic basis is that, I think there's a statistic out there that 30% of Nordic private equity companies transition into the public markets.

[Speaker 2]: That's huge. Uh-huh.

Adam Kostyal: If you look at it from a continental European perspective, it's less than 10%. That's a fundamental loss of opportunity, because if you see that transition into the public markets, it's a democratization of participation in that continued growth. If you keep it outside the public markets, then, of course, there are some strategic acquisitions by listed companies, etc., but a lot of that wealth creation is outside the reach of retail and many institutional investors and pension funds, etc. So, Europe should really focus on, now that it has an agenda of reducing regulation, how do we make sure that that transition from private to public becomes more seamless and manageable and more attractive for private equity to take on, so that it's not, does not only have an agenda of selling companies, but really bringing them into the public markets, staying as a public market owner, at least for a certain period of time, and then creating new fundamental companies in the public markets.

[Speaker 2]: Last question, what would be your advice to management teams who are considering an IPO and preparing their company to IPO, given the companies you've seen in your experience?

Adam Kostyal: I mean, I think from our perspective, when I listen to CEOs or CFOs that have done the journey, I think, you know, readiness is key. At the end of the thing, there's a return of investment on that readiness, because even if you're pursuing a dual track, a lot of the preparation that you want to take on for that potential M&A transaction or or IPO, there's an overlap of that readiness. Start preparing and simulating, you know, quarterly reporting. I know there's a big debate around quarterly reporting or not. But start simulating that. What does it mean? And then ultimately, talk to peers. Talk to peers that have done the journey and learn what, you know, what did they feel they did right or wrong or what would they have done different. And then the other aspect is, there's a lot of institutional money now that would like to invest in these companies. Meet them earlier. Have an understanding of how do they see your business, what are the key questions they're asking, because those questions will be asked when you start the IPO journey. And it's better to have built up those relationship and shown them what you have delivered in terms of the promises and commitment that you've done on that continued growth, so that it's not a surprise when you meet with these investors, you know, when you finally want to do your IPO. So, there's a lot of lessons learned to be done. There's a lot of experience in the markets. Tap into that. And then, of course, select the right advisors. Not only the advisors that promise you the best valuation, but select the advisors that really want to give a long-term commitment and supporting you, not only on the day of the IPO, but really helping you managing your transition into the public environment.

[Speaker 2]: Great. Thank you very much, Adam.

Adam Kostyal: Thank you.

[Speaker 2]: Great to have you.

Adam Kostyal: Likewise. Great to be here.

[Speaker 2]: Thank you for listening to IPO Stories. In future episodes, we'll host CEOs, CFOs, advisors, and other participants in the IPO process to learn from their experience, like from Adam today. If you like the show, please follow us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and share the show with people around you. If you have questions about the IPO process that you'd like us to address with future guests, please get in touch at contact@ipostories.com.