Twelve to thirty-six months.
The pricing of a public offering is set by the work that was done — or not done — in the twenty-four months before the bell.
Cohen Capital Markets engages with private companies preparing for a public listing twelve to thirty-six months before the planned filing. That window is the firm's standing recommendation, and it is not arbitrary. The capabilities a public company must demonstrate on the first investor call cannot be retrofitted in the last six months.
The work is partner-led, structured, and operates alongside the company's existing finance, legal, and management infrastructure. The firm does not displace the chief financial officer, the general counsel, or the audit team. It runs the readiness diagnostic, authors the gap remediation roadmap, and stays in the room through underwriter selection, kickoff, and pricing.
Twenty-four months, sequenced backward.
Indicative timeline. Specific sequencing depends on the company's current readiness posture and the chosen listing venue.
Six IPO-readiness capabilities.
Readiness Assessment
A diagnostic against the standards of public-market reporting, governance, and disclosure. The output is a defensible scorecard the chief executive can show the board on the readiness conversation.
Board & Governance Advisory
Independent director recruitment, committee charters, audit-committee build, and the governance architecture a public board requires. Set in advance of the S-1, not after.
Financial Reporting Readiness
Big 4 audit standards, GAAP compliance, segment reporting, internal-controls maturity, and the close-cycle discipline a public company maintains every quarter without rebuild.
Underwriter Selection
Bake-off structure, syndicate composition, lead-left selection, fee negotiation, and the underwriter relationship management that determines coverage post-listing.
Investor Relations Infrastructure
The narrative the company will tell investors on day one — and every quarter after. KPI selection, guidance discipline, IR website, and the first-meeting choreography.
Dual-Track Process Management
Parallel preparation for both a public listing and a sale process. The optionality is real, the discipline is real, and the partner running both is the same.
Six steps, sequenced backward from listing.
IPO Readiness Assessment
Partner-led diagnostic across financial reporting, governance, narrative, and operational scalability. The honest score, scored against the actual standards underwriters apply.
Gap Analysis & Remediation Roadmap
The named gaps between current posture and public-ready posture, sequenced and resourced. The roadmap the board approves and the CFO executes against.
Governance & Board Build
Independent director search, committee construction, charter design, audit-committee staffing. The board the underwriters will scrutinize at kickoff.
Financial & Audit Readiness
Big 4 audit completion, controls maturity, segment reporting build, and the multi-year financial restatement work that supports the S-1 financial statements.
Underwriter Selection
Bake-off, lead-left, co-managers, syndicate composition, fee negotiation. The underwriter group decides the coverage; the firm decides who is in it.
Roadshow & Pricing
Roadshow choreography, anchor-investor management, pricing-day strategy, and the post-listing investor relations cadence. The partner is in every key meeting.
Six capabilities every IPO-ready company demonstrates.
Underwriters do not underwrite the company they hear pitched. They underwrite the company they can see operating. The six capabilities below are the ones that move from line items on a checklist to operating reality before the S-1 is filed.
Public-grade reporting.
A close cycle that produces auditable financials within twenty business days, segment reporting that holds under scrutiny, and the internal-controls maturity to pass §404.
Board governance maturity.
Independent directors with public-board experience, an audit committee that meets the listing standard, and a board calendar that operates on a public-company cadence.
Investor narrative.
A story the chief executive tells the same way to the first analyst as to the hundredth, with the KPIs the company will be measured against named in advance.
Underwriter syndicate awareness.
The named bankers and analysts who will cover the stock post-listing, and the relationships built before kickoff. The coverage decision is made before the bake-off.
Operational scalability.
Systems, processes, and the management bench depth that handles four times the reporting cadence of a private company without breaking. Stress-tested before the filing, not after.
Disclosure discipline.
The company's standing rules on what it will and will not say in public — and the muscle memory across leadership to hold the line under earnings-season pressure.
Four common IPO situations.
A late-stage private CEO twenty-four months from a planned listing.
The company is at the right size. The conversation is no longer "if" but "when and how." The CEO wants a partner to run the readiness diagnostic and author the roadmap the board approves.
A private equity sponsor preparing a portfolio company for dual-track.
The exit is in view. The sponsor wants both paths — IPO and sale — fully prepared, with the discipline to keep both real until the auction reveals which delivers the better outcome.
A board that has just retained an audit firm and now needs to build the committee.
The audit firm is engaged. The audit committee chair and one independent director still need to be recruited. The firm runs the search, the charter design, and the early committee cadence.
A management team about to run a bake-off and unsure how to structure it.
The lead-left decision is the most consequential underwriter call. The firm runs the structured bake-off, manages fee negotiation, and protects the company against the syndicate-composition decisions that hurt later.
Read more from the firm.
Plainly answered.
How early should we engage the firm?
Twelve to thirty-six months before the planned listing date. The readiness work that determines pricing — governance maturity, audit posture, narrative discipline, operational scalability — cannot be retrofitted in the last six months. Companies that engage later still benefit; companies that engage earlier price better.
Will the firm replace our underwriters?
No. The firm advises the company on underwriter selection, fee negotiation, and syndicate composition; the underwriters then run the offering. The firm sits beside the chief executive in the kickoff meeting, the diligence sessions, and the pricing call — independent of the underwriter economics.
What is dual-track preparation?
The parallel preparation of both an IPO and a strategic-sale process, run with discipline to keep both paths real until the market reveals which delivers the better outcome. The firm runs both tracks under a single partner; the optionality is the protection.
Does the firm execute the offering itself?
No. Cohen Capital Markets is not a registered broker-dealer. Where the engagement involves securities execution, the matter is referred to a separate, unaffiliated FINRA/SIPC-registered broker-dealer partner. Cohen Capital Markets and such partners are separate, unaffiliated entities.