What are the disadvantages of a public listing?

As a public company, you'll:

• be required to provide a fairly significant amount of financial and business disclosure;
• have a higher level of accounting, legal and other professional fees, and
• there will be some distraction for management.

As you can see from comparing the advantages and disadvantages, a number of issues are really a trade-off – while you have less privacy, you also benefit from the increased media coverage and public interest. While you face increased costs to establish and maintain your public status, you also have easier access to capital to help cover those costs. And though investors will put increased pressure on a public company to spur growth and generate profit, the public company has many more opportunities and methods available to do so versus a private company.