We made it!
Hi! Today, I’m going to share about a precious event that took place in our company last year. It is when it went public.
Apparently, there are several advantages that companies gain when they get listed. For us, Atrae, aside from the obvious financial benefits, it’s for future expansion that we decided to go public.
To be listed in the Stock Market is quite ardous, especially for a venture company that has 40 members like us, the qualifications that have to be met are scrupulous. One thing that surely amazed me was how hard the Admin Team worked on it at the time. There were only 3 of them plus a member who works part time! Working with few members, accomplishing all paper works and getting approved in a short period of time, I thought that was extraordinary. It took them only a year and a half for approval, which is fast since it normally takes two years. Isn’t that great?
I still remember when the CEO and the Admin Team were extremely busy during the Road Show. They were out of the office the entire day for a couple of weeks in order to give presentation to Fund Managers and potential Investors.
Eventually, after all their hard work and tedious procedure, we could make our first sale of stock. On June 15th 2016, we attended the IPO Ceremony held at Tokyo Stock Exchange. I was with the company for more than just a month then, so everything was a whole new experience for me. With our suits on and smile on our faces, we all went together with excitement, and witnessed how Atrae was listed in Mothers section before our eyes.
Then a couple of days after that, we held our IPO party with the members along with their families and of course our main guests — the Stockholders, officers from Security companies as well as Consulting firms. And the cool thing is that the party was hosted by a News Anchor, Noriko Baba san! It was good to see such person from a famous Japanese morning news, Zip! But apart from that, there were two things that moved me the most.
First, the CEO’s speech, even without having completely understood because of his formal Japanese. While delivering his speech, I felt the sincerity, happiness and gratitude in his voice. That after all the various challenges he faced together with the team, they could come this far. Listening to him talk, I got a lump in my throat ( good thing I had a glass of champagne with me I could sip, haha )
The other thing was the video my colleague prepared for that party. It showed Atrae’s history, how it started, what the old office was like ( it used to be I&G Partners ) their young, happy faces filled with passion as Entrepreneurs. The video was moving, and as I finished watching it, I was smiling at the same time had tears in my eyes. I looked around me as I felt a little embarrassed but I saw my colleagues sniffing and having the same facial expression as I had. Well, as a newcomer at the time, I could grasp and understand by heart how Atrae started and how they worked all the way up to where we are now.
It was one, memorable event that all of us will treasure.
Certainly, we are aiming to be listed in the First Section of the Stock Market in the future. Meanwhile, we feel proud to be one of more than 2000 listed companies in TSE.
That said, I strongly desire to be a part of another remarkable success that we will experience after a few years, which is to globalize.
Thank you for taking time to read! :)
