Automatic translation: Originally published in Finnish 12/09/2026, 06:00 GMT. Give feedback here.

The blog series discusses life on the stock exchange from a company perspective

In June 2021, at a Board of Directors meeting at Billnäs Ironworks, the parameters of Inderes' upcoming IPO in the autumn were decided. Chairman Kaj Hagros asked, just in case, whether it would make sense as part of the listing to give old owners the opportunity for small "pressure-release sales"? Hagros had mentioned this concept many times along Inderes' journey.

"Absolutely not! This has to be a completely pristine IPO."

I was strictly of the opinion that nothing is sold in an IPO. After all, share sales in IPOs are so widely demonized in public in Finland. Professional investors understand their logic when properly warranted, but it is quite pointless to try to explain sales to the public. They are branded as cashing out, a shadow that casts a long way especially if things do not take off.

So we wanted to do things the other way around: let's impose what is likely the longest 3-year lock-up restrictions in stock exchange history on the legacy owners. And not just on the main owners and founders, but on the entire personnel! We are playing the long game. And that way no one would have anything to complain about regarding coming to cash out and short-term swindling in the listing.

I am occasionally tempted to do things in a markedly different way than some unwritten general practice or market custom dictates. Sometimes that leads to great insights, and sometimes it goes completely wrong.

This time it went wrong. First of all, from the perspective of the long game, the solution was not the smartest one. Few people have the financial means to view a holding worth hundreds of thousands of euros in their portfolio as completely detached from their own wealth. Second, for every IPO, someone crawls out of the woodwork who finds the listing a scam or wrong in some way. In Finland, someone's feelings always get hurt, especially if someone gets wealthy, and you must not let the "someones" influence decision-making.

As Chairman, Hagros was often right, and as a slightly idealistic entrepreneur, I sometimes rebelled against him. The most annoying thing about Kaj was that you often only realized he was right years later.

I have talked to several entrepreneurs who have taken a private equity investor on their growth journey. When coming on board, the private equity investor often buys a portion of the shares from key persons and puts money into the company. Don't private equity investors consider key persons' sales to be a terribly bad signal of their commitment?

"When key persons get their mortgages paid off and financial security, they are better able to take risks and focus on the business itself. There is less gripping the stick too tightly, and the otherwise heavy life of an entrepreneur is in better balance."

Unfortunately, I only heard this perspective later from one private equity investor. And then I heard it from a few more entrepreneurs who testified that this was precisely the case for them.

The idea of a private equity investor is therefore to avoid a situation where the company's strategy is to take risks and step on the gas, but the team executing the strategy simultaneously hits the brakes because they do not want to risk most of their personal wealth. In addition, we all have lives to live, which may include pipe renovations, building a house, or summer cottage dreams. These do not detract from one's commitment to the company in any way.

I still understand the public resentment sometimes seen towards share sales in IPOs. When 80% of a company's listing transaction consists of share sales and 20% is cash going into the company's treasury, it undeniably feels like a scam if the company's communication markets the listing with the narrative that "we are raising money for growth here." An openly honest message would work, even if it does not sound as grandiose as a growth investment.

The renewal of the ownership base along with different development phases is a natural part of a company's lifecycle, and a listing is a natural discontinuity point for the renewal of the ownership structure. The ownership base must have the risk-bearing capacity required by the strategy presented by the company upon listing. If the selling pressure simmering in the ownership base is not released in the listing transaction, it will inevitably be released over time on the stock exchange. And that, in turn, means continuous selling pressure on the share in the secondary market.

I myself have bought more Inderes shares from the market after the IPO, and I have never really thought about my holding in terms of euros. Still, I sometimes wonder whether the possibility of pressure-release sales would have led to a more relaxed grip on the stick. At Inderes, we started stepping on the gas even more after the autumn 2021 IPO just as the market fell out from under us in 2022. Our listing price was EUR 25, and when trading began, the price soared to the EUR 50 level. Everyone's entire net worth was locked up in the company's shares, and now that capital was used to take massive risks in the business on a personal level for many, in a situation where the world was completely upside down anyway. It was a tough first year on the stock exchange, but we made it through that, too.

However, the stock exchange has done its job, and Inderes' ownership base has renewed and lives and breathes on the stock exchange every day. However, I have fed the idea of Hagros' "pressure-release sale" concept to every entrepreneur considering an IPO, even though I previously advised the opposite.