Reproduction partielle permise avec citation du document source, incluant la notice ©. Short sections may be quoted without explicit permission, if full credit, including © notice, is given to the source. CIRANO Le CIRANO est un organisme sans but lucratif constitué en vertu de la Loi des compagnies du Québec. Le financement de son infrastructure et de ses activités de recherche provient des co...

For over a year, the market for initial public offerings (IPO) for promising private companies has been slow. In 2007, there were just 234 IPOs, down from a decade high of 486 in 1999. As a result, private companies and their investors (including venture capital and private equity backed companies) have been left without a crucial exit strategy. More importantly, these private companies that mi...