Why more startups are choosing to stay private for longer
Secondary sales give early employees a way out without an IPO
A growing number of late-stage startups are postponing public listings indefinitely, using secondary share sales to give employees and early investors liquidity without the scrutiny of public markets.
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Not every investor is convinced. Shares in Meridian Foods slipped 2 percent after the announcement, with some analysts questioning whether the projected savings of $9.5 million a year are achievable on the stated timeline.
The figures are modest by the standards of the largest players but significant for a company of this size. According to its latest filing, Meridian Foods generated $9.5 million in revenue over the past twelve months, with margins improving in each of the last three quarters.
For Rafael Duarte, who founded her first company in 2015 and sold it four years later, the lesson is familiar. "Growth hides mistakes," she said. "When it slows down, you find out which decisions were good and which ones you just got away with."
How secondaries work
The deal was approved after the parties agreed to divest two overlapping business lines, a condition regulators had signaled early in the review. Supporters called it a pragmatic compromise; critics said it left the hardest questions about market concentration unanswered.
Meridian Foods will hold a briefing for analysts next month to walk through the numbers in more detail. Management has promised a first progress update alongside its third-quarter results.
Similar programs at rival firms have produced mixed results. In one well-known case, adoption exceeded projections within a year; in another, integration problems pushed the expected benefits back by almost eighteen months.