Entering a stock exchange is a significant step in the company's development and it should be done at an appropriate moment. There are numerous theories explaining the factors influencing the initial public offer (the IPO). A number of authors refer to the so-called hot & cold markets or to market-to-book ratio (MTB). Some others claim that the decision to enter a stock exchange stems from a technological breakthrough in a given sector. Also mentioned among the IPO factors is e.g. the age of the company and its performance.

For the few years recently, very few new companies have been listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The aim of this study is to determine the factors which have influenced the IPO so far. The analysis covers, inter alia, the influence of the high market value of the company in a given sector; the relative maturity of the company; the size of the company; its profitability and financial needs; the impact of general economic conditions. Also, the internal and external stimuli are investigated. The analysis deals with those public listed companies which entered the Warsaw Stock Exchange in the years 1992 - 2001. The research covers 6 years of activities of 173 companies - starting 5 years prior to IPO until to the moment when they went public.

The subject of the analysis are the variables connected with time (publishing of introduction prospectus, floating, the calendar year of the data (1992 - 2001), the year of the data with reference to the IPO date); company's status (public / private); variables connected with the company's characteristics (the age of the company) and those connected with its book value (tangible and intangible [realisable and notional] assets, equity capital, long term liabilities, short term liabilities, sales income, net profit, investments in tangible assets, investments in intangible assets, book value per share). Also, the conditions on the stock exchange (annual Market-to-Book indicator for a given sector, average annual value of the WIG index) and the country's economic condition in general (GDP growth rate, average annual interest rate) have been analysed. The research has been carried out with use of probit models.

It would seem that those are economic conditions, the GDP growth rate in particular, that are decisive factors making the companies go public. Equally important is the market value (MTB). The least important factor here is the financial condition of a company, its maturity and size. This implies that the decision of a company to go public is usually of an opportunist nature.