There are many ways to set up a company in a way that reduces the influence of activist investors and short-term holders. One is reducing liquidity (such as Berkshire). Another is setting up classes of shares (such as Google).
Still, they only make sense when the company is profitable and paying nice dividends (or growing fast).
When you IPO you're going to the market asking for money and offering growth or dividends in return. If you don't want to be subject to the conditions investors place on the capital, don't raise any and keep the company private.
You can't have the cake (receive money from investors) and eat it too (not be subject to their demands).
Going public is not always about raising money. Many startups are forced to go public because they have employees who want to cash in their stock. Once they become established companies, being able to offer stock options to employees is a considerable advantage.
In those cases, going public is a way to raise money to pay those employees. The company could easily buy back their shares if it had the cash available.
In other words, they planned from the beginning to go public in the future as a way to pay for their current employees.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21642169-why-activist-...
There are many ways to set up a company in a way that reduces the influence of activist investors and short-term holders. One is reducing liquidity (such as Berkshire). Another is setting up classes of shares (such as Google).
Still, they only make sense when the company is profitable and paying nice dividends (or growing fast).
When you IPO you're going to the market asking for money and offering growth or dividends in return. If you don't want to be subject to the conditions investors place on the capital, don't raise any and keep the company private.
You can't have the cake (receive money from investors) and eat it too (not be subject to their demands).