This is a significant move for several reasons:
1) Samwers have made the majority of their money from selling their clones to the original companies. I think they can continue doing this with much success. So I don't see why they need to go public.
2) Cloning to sell doesn't seem like a viable business model as a public company, what metrics would they be judged by? So that means they are seriously building companies now for cashflow and long term potential.
3) From what I know about Rocket Internet many of their management level employees are transient. As someone else stated, they hire a lot of interns and young employees looking to gain a little experience before moving on to something else. Can they continue doing this as a public company?
4) They are extremely aggressive, and focus a lot of growth by any means. I don't think anything they do is illegal, but such focus on rapid growth always leads to problems (think real estate loan bubble). They will dramatically increase their liabilities as a public company.
5) Is this the first technology incubator to go public? Public companies are similar to them?
Wanting and planning to go public is one thing. Having the management team, financials and story to convince people to actually buy your shares is another. I'm looking forward to reading their prospectus.
2) Cloning to sell doesn't seem like a viable business model as a public company, what metrics would they be judged by? So that means they are seriously building companies now for cashflow and long term potential.
3) From what I know about Rocket Internet many of their management level employees are transient. As someone else stated, they hire a lot of interns and young employees looking to gain a little experience before moving on to something else. Can they continue doing this as a public company?
4) They are extremely aggressive, and focus a lot of growth by any means. I don't think anything they do is illegal, but such focus on rapid growth always leads to problems (think real estate loan bubble). They will dramatically increase their liabilities as a public company.
5) Is this the first technology incubator to go public? Public companies are similar to them?
Wanting and planning to go public is one thing. Having the management team, financials and story to convince people to actually buy your shares is another. I'm looking forward to reading their prospectus.