Linden Lab On The Stock Market.

Why Isn't This Company On The Market, I Mean there growing greatly and there making very big profit.

Can you provide any evidence in support of your statements?

Also to be on the Stock Market Linden Labs would have to meet certain levels of business practices and there is no evidence that anyone at LL has enough business knowledge to bring them to the required levels.

You really ought to read the bios of some of these folks before you make such outragious statements. Mitch Kapor, who chairs the board? Not enough business knowledge? The founder of Lotus Development Corp. and inventor of the bloody spreadsheet? Christ.

Most companies have IPO's when they need money for whatever they're planning. In LL's case, they can always release more sims providing a steady flow of money from 'relatively nothing'. Now that SL has caught on, I doubt they need any financial help from anyone, nevermind us 'regular' players who would consider investing maybe 10-20k tops. But if they do, I'll be the first one to invest

*recoils in horror*

The first spreadsheet was VisiCalc, by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston. Kapor founded Lotus after having worked at Personal Software, which distributed VisiCalc. So while he certainly has the experience of taking a company public, he's not the inventor of the spreadsheet.

Deciding when to take a company public is fairly complex, and requires agreement and cooperation among the investors and management.

Part of the equation is the market for IPOs. If IPOs are pulling in a lot of money, it's a good time to go public, but if they're not, then companies will often wait. If the founders of the company based their personal business plans on the idea of going public soon, they'll work towards that end. (I once worked at a company like that, which went public, then got bought out, and a couple of the original founders retired soon thereafter.) But if the founders really want to run the company, they're more likely to hold off, because going public imposes limitations on what management can and can't do, and introduces a risk that new stockholders will come on board with different priorities, forcing management to change what they're doing.

There's also the question of how the stock is distributed. If the founders still own a significant part of the company, they're going to have much more control over going public. But when the venture capitalists own the majority, their style of investing comes into play. Some VC companies want to try to bring their companies public within five years, reap their profits, and fiind new companies in which to invest. Others are willing to stay with a company for a longer period, assuming profits continue to grow.

In this case, Kapor is one of the major investors. If I recall correctly, this is the only for-profit board that he's on, and he certainly spends a good chunk of his energy on non-profit activities. My personal take is that he doesn't seem like the sort of investor who wants to get his money back from the company as soon as possible.

Who would want to go public and deal with Sarbanes-Oxley compliancy when they''ve got angel investors?

Maybe it's because you're looking for Linden Labs...

There isn't a Linden Labs

Agreed.

Which is possibly why they may just decide on the London Stock Market, perhaps the AIM, although that might suck because my ISA or PeP cannot hold them unless they are dual quoted......

Hmm, thats a thought, I hear they are setting up an office in Brighton UK....

Just a view, no personal financial advice intended

The next question is, "would you really invest in LLAB if it were publicly listed"?

Given the high degree of instability of its (only!) product, the fickle nature of the internet crowd, the the uncertainty of its cash flows, I'd put an investment in LLAB at "speculative at best".

Plus , imagine the uproar "We' (as in the SLers ) would create when we percieve LL acting in the interests of it's shareholders, instead of us...lol

Actually, Linden Labs is NOT profitable, has never been profitable, and noone knows if they ever will be...

The last I heard on this was a few months ago when some blog indicated they were close to breakeven, but of course there are different ways of reviewing a profit and loss account.

Best to wait and see, and take appropiate advice at that stage in the event of an IPO imho

Revenue != Profit