Why this Californian company is listing in London
As a high growth company with ambitious plans to expand our business, enter new markets and build on our commercial success to date, Power Probe wanted to select an accessible, capital-rich, and globally respected market that truly understands and nurtures ambitious smaller and mid-sized companies, says Chema Garcia
Power Probe, a business that started life back in California back in 1992, is floating on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market today.
Today, we’re headquartered in North Carolina, 90 per cent of our sales come from the US market and a key driver for our IPO is to raise funds to invest in a manufacturing facility in the US.
So why have we listed on a market nearly 4000 miles away from our head office?
Our decision to list on AIM was a strategic choice built on an understanding of what we need to scale globally.
As a high growth company with ambitious plans to expand our business, enter new markets and build on our commercial success to date, we wanted to select an accessible, capital-rich, and globally respected market that truly understands and nurtures ambitious smaller and mid-sized companies.
The London Stock Exchange, and AIM in particular, is home to funds and investors whose entire mandate is focused on backing companies exactly our size and growth profile, and is home to numerous smaller, highly successful companies in the broader technology sector.
It also offers a powerful, yet proportionate regulatory framework, providing the governance rigor and transparency demanded by international investors, but without the prohibitive expense and complexity.
While the American stock market is a fantastic place for larger companies to grow and take their businesses to the next level, it isn’t quite the same for firms of our size who risk getting lost in a land of giants.
For a company of our scale, the onerous regulatory burden and the sheer cost of compliance associated with a full US listing can be a monumental distraction. It would have risked stretching ourselves too thin, pulling valuable management attention away from running our business.
The “right-sized” regulation of AIM should allow my team and me to focus on what matters most to our business: investing in R&D, bringing innovative new products to market, executing our manufacturing expansion and serving our customers both in the US and the UK & Europe.
AIM: a global hub
AIM also feels like an international market that is going to support our international ambitions and expansion of our footprint into Europe from our existing UK facility. It’s a hub where a global investor base, including institutional funds, family offices, and specialist small-cap investors, actively seeks out high-growth opportunities,
For Power Probe, this means access to a global cohort of investors who appreciate our strong underlying growth trajectory.
The London ecosystem is also especially geared to advise and support high-growth firms throughout their public life, something we simply couldn’t find in the same tailored form elsewhere, having explored other listing options across Europe.
As a result, we feel like we’ve been carefully managed and guided through the listing process every step of the way by a group of advisors collaborating seamlessly, highly experienced in helping companies such as ours raise capital in this way.
Prior to commencing our IPO, I had of course read numerous headlines around London as a capital destination and the challenges it was facing but, from our perspective, we’ve found the listing process on AIM relatively straightforward.
It’s been an intense period of activity that has not been without its challenges but I and the team have enjoyed it and we are very much looking forward to starting life as a PLC.
Ultimately, we chose London because it offers the perfect balance of capital access, global visibility and proportionate governance and our listing hopefully underlines that London is open for business when it comes to attracting overseas companies.
For my fellow CEOs leading dynamic, growing businesses, whether in the US, Europe, or beyond, I would encourage them to do likewise.
London may not be the only place in the world where companies can successfully raise capital but, when it comes to choosing a launchpad for high growth smaller companies like ours, it already feels like home from home.
Chema Garcia is CEO of Power Probe