Call for enterprise policy improvement

The head of the Irish Stock Exchange (ISE) has called on Government to improve its enterprise policy, or risk missing out on a new generation of Irish plcs.

Addressing the ISE’s Irish Enterprise: Funding for Growth conference in Dublin, yesterday, the stock exchange’s chief executive, Deirdre Somers, said the current high level of start-up companies is not being matched by the number of firms growing into large-scale Irish companies.

Ms Somers said that more attention and support needs to be given to medium-sized companies and that the Government must try to help grow companies with an international reach, rather than just support entrepreneurship.

“Encouraging entrepreneurship is not an end in itself,” Ms Somers told the 300 delegates at yesterday’s conference. “The end must be creating companies that have scale and importance on a global stage and which will contribute economically to Ireland for decades to come,” she added.

Ms Somers said that the Government’s enterprise policy should include the ambition to build five-to-10 companies with a market worth of €1bn, each, in the next five years, through organic growth or acquisition — adding that while Irish companies who achieve lucrative trade sales should be congratulated, more management teams should be encouraged to grow their business via a share listing.

“Right now, Ireland has companies that have the business proposition, capability and ambition to be the next Ryanair, Kerry Group or Paddy Power. There are many others that can benefit from the funding options, flexibilities and exits provided by the stock market. At a national policy level, we need to start redefining success by a different metric, a different and bigger ambition,” she said.

“Ireland has one of the highest levels of business start-ups in the EU, but the vast majority of companies sell at a relatively early stage,” Ms Somers said.

Figures from Enterprise Ireland — which co-hosted yesterday’s conference — show that from 13 of its equity-funded start-up clients which went on to take a public listing, seven were eventually acquired, two returned to private ownership via management buyouts and four continue to be publicly quoted companies.

The agency’s chief executive, Frank Ryan said that the Action Plan for Jobs should raise awareness and play a part in building a pipeline for potential Irish company flotations in coming years, either via the ISE or additional exchanges.