IDIOT'S GUIDE TO FED2
COMPANY MANAGEMENT FOR MANUFACTURERS
PROMOTING TO MANUFACTURER
The rank of Industrialist is your probationary period as a CEO; you are running a private business and while you will have had investment from venture capitalists, they won't have had any say in how you run things. You also won't have had to worry about problems such as maintenance of your facilities. But now all that changes.
You can promote to Manufacturer whenever you want - there are no requirements, but if you prefer you could remain in charge of your small business forever.
Promotion involves floating your business on the Galactic stock exchange by undertaking an initial public offering to convert it into a public company. To do this you decide on the price that shares will be sold for. This price is based on the book value of the company to which you apply a markup of between -20 and 20. You can see what effect a particular markup would have by using the command 'IPO markup' where 'markup' is the markup you want to apply. You'll be given an evaluation of how the resulting IPO would work:
IPO Valuation for Newbod Enterprises
Markup 10%
IPO share price 2,560
IPO capital raised 23,296,000
Brokers fees 3,494,400
IPO net capital raised 19,801,600
When you're ready to promote and have decided on the markup, you float the business with 'LAUNCH IPO markup' where once again the markup is between -20 and 20. You'll become a Manufacturer and your business will become a company. The total number of shares increases to 10,000 with the extras held by the broker, and the company gets the money raised.
Running a company isn't all that different from running a business, but some of the commands change - instead of 'DI BUSINESS' you use 'DI COMPANY', 'FREEZE BUSINESS' becomes 'FREEZE COMPANY' and so on. You can also own up to 15 factories now.
As a Manufacturer, things get much more interesting. Your opportunities for making money increase, but so do the obstacles in your way! This section of the Guide details the advantages and disadvantages.