> On Mar 23, 2009, at 10:08 PM, Jordan Hayes wrote:
>
>> Note that IPO (depite the public perception) is not (by a long-shot)
>> the typical exit strategy. Private acquisitions are about 8x bigger,
>> market-cap-wise.
>
> Interesting - I never came across that little fact. Where'd you get it?
Yeah, I'd like to know too. It's often easy to overlook how small the "visible" publicly-traded universe of companies is relative to the total economy. There are about 6,400 companies in the Wilshire 5000 and I think about 10,000 in Compustat, and many of these aren't what you'd call real companies. But in total there are more than 5 million firms in the US. In 2002 there were almost 17,000 firms with more than 500 employees. Probably well under half the workforce works for a listed company.
SA