Publicizing Know-How: DGA's Initial Public Offering

The case presents the initial public offering of DGA ¿ a relatively small consulting firm, but at the same time the first in Central & Eastern Europe and one of a few in the world to go public. The reader stands over the decision-maker¿s dilemma, whether entering the stock exchange is a proper way for the development of a company which is heavily dependent on specific human assets in the form of know-how of key managers, and which revenues are subject to long selling cycles in comparison with the duration of the projects. An interesting thing is that Poland is a country big enough to have a large stock exchange (#1 in number of IPOs and #2 in IPO market capitalization in 2009 in Europe), but at the same time, a country with shallow VC markets. Therefore, IPOs are used for financing early growth stages (Hungary and the Czech Republic present similar patterns).