What are some advices on IPOs?

Hi Sharon,
Most of the time, a company went for an IPO when the company looking to do fundraising.
And first questions to ask is, what is the objective of fundraising?

Is it for business expansions? or is it for debt repayment?

Most of the time, for business expansion, is more preferable as it also means that the company found ways to grow the company further, where investors would have an opportunity to have investment return later on.

Next, if the company is for business expansions, then the next question is to ask what is their current company situation, and with the fund how the company could grow the company further.

This is a tougher questions to find out, where you would have to do more research and understand the ability of the company to grow the company further.
Lastly is what is the valuation of the company

In IPO, the owner is selling his ownership of the company. As a seller, they would seek to sell at a higher price. Hence, it is more likely a company to price it high when they go IPO, as they would price in future growth. But not to say that the company couldn't grow further, take an example like Facebook when they go for IPO, they valuations is almost 100 times PE. However, due to the fast growth, and company moat, it grows even further over the years.

If you like to find out what are the metrics to look at a growth company, you may find it in this series of the article: https://wealthpark.io/articles/how-to-find-best...

Instead of looking at IPO as a method, look at the stock as if you are buying on a stock market.

In fact, buying a stock from the stock market, you have the stock market history. an IPO does not offer the stock price history