Questions promoters ask.

The work on your books is confidential and covered by a confidentiality agreement. Nothing from it is published unless the company files an offer document, and then only what the regulations require.

The audited accounts the company already files with the Registrar of Companies stay public, as they are today.

No. The team around you prepares data and answers questions day to day. Your time goes to the decisions only you can take. These are the size and purpose of the issue, board appointments, key disclosures, and signing the offer document.

Signing carries personal responsibility under the Companies Act, which is why every statement in the offer document should stand on a document. Mansukhbhai works with you and your accounts team to prepare what the merchant banker, auditors and legal counsel ask for, so most requests reach you once, already organised.

No. Mansukhbhai Management Services is not a merchant banker and is not registered with SEBI. Every IPO is managed by a SEBI-registered merchant banker appointed by the company.

Yes. Accurate books, a clear structure and reliable numbers take time to build, and they help in discussions with banks and investors in the meantime. An IPO can be considered once the company meets the eligibility conditions.

SME platforms, such as BSE SME and NSE Emerge, are for companies whose paid-up capital after the issue is up to Rs 25 crore. They have their own eligibility tests, the issue is fully underwritten, and a market maker must quote prices for at least three years after listing.

The Main Board is for larger companies, with its own conditions. Some companies list on an SME platform first and move to the Main Board once they meet its conditions.

Preparation runs beside your banker's work: books in order, restatement working papers ready, documents organised and supporting documents ready when a query comes. Most of it is information your banker will ask for in any case.

Plans pause for many reasons: market timing, a change in priorities, the terms on offer, or open points in records and structure. The work already done is usually not lost.

Where the open points were in records, such as a restatement, a missing approval or a group company question, they can be continued from where they stopped.

The company keeps the work: accurate books, a clear structure and restated numbers, which help with banks and investors too. Nothing is filed or made public unless the company files an offer document.

That can be the right choice. The same preparation (accurate books, a clear structure and restated numbers) can help in discussions with banks and investors too.

Investors usually compare a profitable company with similar listed companies. They look at how many times its yearly profit the market pays for those companies. This is the price to earnings, or P/E, multiple. Some use operating profit instead (EV to EBITDA). That figure is then weighed against the company's own growth, margins, return on capital and risks.

The method is the same for everyone. What goes into it is not: how steady, how protected from competitors and how easy to grow the business looks, and how well each of those is shown.

In a book-built issue (where investors bid for shares within a price range), the company and its merchant banker set a price band; investors bid within it, and the company and merchant banker then fix the final price on the basis of the bids. In a fixed-price issue, the price is set in advance.

SEBI and the exchange review the disclosures. They do not decide, approve or guarantee the price.

Any figure mentioned before the numbers are restated, the key numbers are documented and the market has seen the company is a starting point, not a price.

The price is set close to the issue, by the company with its merchant banker, on market conditions, peer valuations and investor demand at that time. It helps to know what any early number assumes.

Two companies with the same revenue can look very different to an investor. The difference lies in how concentrated their customers are and how much revenue repeats. It also lies in how protected their margins are, how strong their governance is, and how easy the business is to grow.

How clearly each of these is shown, with evidence, matters as much as the facts themselves.

The gap is usually between what the promoter knows about the business and what an outsider can see and check. Customer loyalty, pricing power and future orders are real, but an investor can only weigh what is shown.

Two things help an outsider see more of the business: showing more of what is already true, with data and documents, and building what is missing before going to market. Neither guarantees any particular valuation. The price is set at the time of the issue.

Key numbers, or key performance indicators (KPIs), are the measures an investor uses to judge the business: customer count, repeat rate, capacity use, margin per unit and so on.

Offer documents disclose them in the section on the basis for the issue price. They are approved by the company's audit committee and certified by its statutory auditor or a peer-reviewed chartered accountant. Any key numbers shared with investors before the IPO must be disclosed too, and after listing the company keeps reporting them for a period.

Key numbers that are defined, tracked and evidenced early tell the business's story. Gaps leave investors to guess.

Your share falls, but the company stays yours. New shares are issued to investors, so your percentage falls, but in most SME IPOs the promoter group keeps a majority.

In an SME IPO, promoters must hold at least 20% of the post-issue capital for three years (locked in, so it cannot be sold). Of their holding above that, half is locked in for two years and half for one year. Main Board lock-ins are generally shorter: 18 months for the minimum promoter contribution (three years where the money is mainly for capital expenditure), and six months for the rest. What does change is how the company is governed: independent directors, committees and minority shareholders with rights.

In an SME IPO, yes, within limits. An offer for sale (existing shareholders selling their own shares) can be at most 20% of the issue size, and a selling shareholder can sell at most half of their own holding.

How much to sell, and when, shapes how the market reads the issue.

The use of funds must be specific and supported. In an SME IPO, money kept for general corporate purposes (money not tied to a named use) is capped at 15% of the amount raised or Rs 10 crore, whichever is lower. The money raised cannot be used to repay loans from promoters, the promoter group or related parties.

A loan must be repaid with interest, usually needs collateral and personal guarantees, and limits how much more you can borrow. Money raised in an IPO is equity: there is no EMI and no repayment date.

In return, you share ownership and take on listed-company duties, and the share price can rise or fall. Many companies use both.

The merchant banker manages the issue. It carries out due diligence, drafts and files the offer document, coordinates the other intermediaries, takes the issue to investors and gives a due diligence certificate to SEBI or the exchange.

The company, its directors and its promoters remain responsible for what the offer document says.

SEBI makes the rules and reviews offer documents for Main Board issues. For SME issues, the stock exchange reviews the draft offer document. Both raise queries and give observations or approval, and the exchange grants listing.

Neither decides the price, and neither endorses the company.

Qualified institutional buyers such as mutual funds and insurers, non-institutional investors such as high net worth individuals and family offices, and individual investors. In SME issues today, the minimum application is two lots (the smallest bundle of shares one can apply for), worth more than Rs 2 lakh.

Every SME issue today is fully underwritten, and a market maker must quote prices for at least three years after listing.