Equity Solutions

Transaction Readiness for Private Companies

Take your company through the next stage of growth with a streamlined workflow to help you confidently and efficiently prepare for equity transactions.
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Prepare Today, Transact Tomorrow

Whether preparing for an initial public offering, tender offer, or direct listing, completing a liquidity event can be a rigorous process regardless of current market conditions.

Morgan Stanley at Work

How Can You Get Transaction Ready? ft. Erin Conolly

Proactively preparing for a liquidity event can help your company minimize delays, create efficiencies, and reduce risk.

Hear insights from Erin Conolly on how to become transaction-ready.

Going public is a major milestone—but it takes planning to be transaction ready. With the right prep, you can reduce delays, create efficiencies, and help limit risk. Here are four considerations to being transaction ready:

 

Establish Accuracy
Your cap table is one of your most important data sources. Keeping equity and transaction data organized and accurate helps with cleanup efforts—like finding paper certificates or verifying transfers—and helps you respond quickly.

 

Optimize Your Process

Equity plans can be supported by multiple systems and processes. Companies planning to go public may want to make sure those systems can scale with the transition to public company life where transactions occur daily. Having the right systems and infrastructure to support the transaction early can save you time and resources down the road.

 

Manage Compliance Requirements
As companies manage remote and mobile workforces, you will want to think about the impact to your equity plans. Granting equity globally may have tax, securities, and regulatory requirements that companies may need to consider. It’s important to understand international legal and tax regulations early to stay ahead of the curve.

 

Engage Employees
Employees are your biggest asset. Help them understand their equity—how it works, how it’s taxed—and support them with resources to make informed financial decisions. A solid communication strategy makes all the difference.

 

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Going public comes with complexity—but being transaction ready can make it smoother. And having experienced partners to guide you, set timelines, and manage milestones may be critical to success. If you’re considering going public, connect with us to learn how to stay transaction ready.

Plan for a Liquidity Event

Establish an efficient workflow to handle equity transactions, from processing and settlement to recordkeeping. Here are a few important considerations for staying transaction-ready:

 

  1. Establish Accuracy Before a Transaction

    Keep your equity plan records accurate and transaction-ready. A data health check can help confirm that ownership records, employee demographic information, and participant details are complete before a liquidity event.

  2. Streamline Equity Administration Processes

    Put the right systems and workflows in place to ensure your equity plan information stays updated over time. Automating and integrating payroll, HR, and equity administration systems can help support more efficient plan management.

  3. Manage Global Compliance Requirements

    Understand international legal and tax requirements that may apply to equity plan participants. Tracking employee work location, residency, and mobility data can help support compliance with international equity compensation, payroll, and tax obligations.

  4. Educate and Engage Shareholders

    Keep your shareholders and equity plan participants informed about the value and implications of their equity. Clear communications, educational resources, and access to guidance can support more informed financial decisions and stronger shareholder engagement.

Explore Our Liquidity Solutions

Simplify how your organization manages liquidity events, including tender offers, secondary transactions, and other shareholder liquidity programs. With tailored support and modern technology, Morgan Stanley at Work can help make transactions easier to execute and more accessible for participants.

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Morgan Stanley at Work
As Carta’s preferred U.S. public equity management provider, we work together to streamline the transition process for late-stage private companies going public. Leverage our subject matter experts, supportive resources, and efficient onboarding tools to facilitate a smooth transition.
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The success of your next transaction may hinge on your organization’s ability to withstand market uncertainty and minimize unforeseen delays. Morgan Stanley at Work’s Issuer Strategy and Excellence team can help.

If you are an employee looking for help with your account, visit support.

Frequently Asked Questions

Transaction readiness is the process of preparing a private company's equity plan, data, and compliance posture ahead of a liquidity event such as an IPO, SPAC merger, or direct listing, so that ownership records, shareholder communications, and regulatory requirements are accurate and in order before the transaction begins.

 

A Transaction Readiness Assessment can help identify operational, data, compliance, and communication gaps that may affect the efficiency of a future liquidity event.

 

Readiness planning may be useful for IPOs, direct listings, tender offers, controlled secondary transactions, mergers and acquisitions, dividend distributions, repurchases, and other company-led liquidity events.

 

An initial public offering (IPO) is the traditional process through which a private company issue new shares to the public through underwriters. A direct listing allows a company to list existing shares directly on an exchange without issuing new shares or using underwriters.

 

A tender offer is a company-sponsored event that provides liquidity to eligible shareholders at a set price within a specific timeframe.

 

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