The Economist draws attention to the shrinking IPOs in USA and Europe. It feels that the public limited company (plc) long viewed as the final destination of all business undertakings is yielding ground to other forms. New innovative forms on the one hand and over regulation of plcs, principal- agent problem and short- term bias of considering only the next quarter profits and market price of shares to the exclusion of the long view on the other are the reasons for this development.
In India, plcs account for only 7% of the total companies though it is taken for granted that a big business which requires large doses of capital will eventually have to go public. There is no noticeable drop in the number of plcs that are getting registered in the country. IPOs have shrunk in India also but that is due to the downswing in the capital market and recession in Europe and USA.