Stock Exchange welcomes 12 new companies to IPO class

Orla O’Gorman, IPOready programme director, with Joe Barrett, chief operations officer, Applegreen, at the ISE induction day for the programme. Photo: Shane O’Neill, SON Photographic

Ellie Donnelly

The Irish Stock Exchange (ISE) has announced that 12 high-growth companies have started its 2017 IPOready programme.

The 15-month programme will equip the companies with the capital raising, investor relations and management skills needed for a successful IPO, the ISE said.

Among the participants hoping to develop their ability to attract capital from domestic and international investors are med tech company Atlantic Therapeutics; Crest Solutions, which supports clients in regulated packaging industries to comply with regulations and improve product quality; agri tech company Devenish; and O'Reilly group, which designs and manufactures precast concrete and related construction products in Ireland.

ATA Group, Finance Ireland, PFH Technology Group, PMD Solutions, Rubicoin, Taoglas and Zevas Communications, which provides multichannel, multilingual customer contact solutions to a range of industries across Europe and North America, plus another unnamed firm complete the 12 companies chosen.

This year's programme, which is receiving support from Enterprise Ireland and the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF), is building on last year's IPOready programme, from which nine high-growth, high-potential Irish companies graduated.

Last year's graduates have raised over €120m in debt and equity financing, and created over 600 jobs.

Orla O'Gorman, head of equity at the ISE and IPOready director, said the ISE was "delighted" to welcome 12 new companies to its programme.

Ms O'Gorman said a key challenge for Ireland was to enable companies which have ambition and potential to be in a position to access capital markets in order to raise permanent financing to scale their business.

"IPOready is designed to address that challenge by delivering the knowledge and skill-set required to raise strategic finance," Ms O'Gorman said.

Meanwhile David Walsh, CEO and co-founder of IPOready graduate company Netwatch, a remote visual monitoring company, said the programme had helped the company "craft an equity pitch that really spoke to potential investors."

This year ISIF, the Irish State's €8bn sovereign development fund, has joined as a programme partner to provide participants with one-to-one interaction with their investment team and to assess potential investments in the companies.

In addition the programme will include mentoring and presentations from leaders of ISE-quoted companies, senior ISE executives, corporate finance experts, entrepreneurs, investment practitioners, legal, communications and investor relations advisers.