Taking a company public is a grueling marathon of planning, regulatory work, and calls with investors. So what do you tell a friend who’s about to reach this career milestone?

“Congrats! Now be ready for a lot more work,” said Steven Chan, CFO of Connect Biopharma.

Chan has been overseeing his employer’s post-IPO transformation after it went public two years ago, and he also has been part of three other IPOs, all through traditional listings, in the tech and biotech space.

And when the clang of the opening bell has faded, he said, the CFO has to be ready for a transformed job in a transformed company.

“Don’t look at it as the endpoint,” he said. “It has to be one of the early steps along what, hopefully, is a very successful journey for the company itself.”

Here’s your post-IPO checklist for the miles to come.

Click here for the rest of the post-IPO checklist.—AK

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In an era of increased regulatory scrutiny, the Big Four accounting firms look set for a shakeup.

One Big Four firm has already taken the leap: PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) plans to stop performing consulting work for audit clients to avoid conflicts of interest, implicitly daring competing firms to rise to the same challenge.

The timing is certainly opportune, as the Big Four, which includes Ernst & Young, KPMG, and Deloitte, as well as PwC, have encountered pointed questions about their independence from audit clients. Earlier this year, Ernst & Young axed a plan to spin off its consulting arm following opposition from US partners and former employees.

“We see this as our role as first movers to lead the profession,” Wes Bricker, PwC’s US trust solutions co-leader, told CFO Brew. “Our orientation here is very much toward focusing on the market, focusing on the public, and the information that they need.”

For more on PwC’s new policies, click here.—NP

Everything’s coming up Milhouse-ish.

CFOs have a brighter outlook about their own companies and the larger US economy in 2024, according to the latest CFO Survey, a collaboration between the Richmond and Atlanta Federal Reserve Banks and Duke University. The survey measured CFO sentiment between August 21 and September 8 of this year.

Beyond growing optimism, the survey hints at other significant shifts in financial decision-makers’ general outlook. In recent quarters, CFOs were most concerned about labor availability.

In the latest quarter, CFOs said monetary policy was their top business concern, followed by “labor quality and availability, inflation, and weak demand.” That’s notable: It marks the first time in at least a decade that monetary policy took the top slot, according to a statement from the Richmond Fed.

And from the survey results, it’s clear that interest rates are impacting spending. Around 40 percent of CFOs said their companies cut back on spending due to high interest rates.

Click here for more on how CFOs are feeling about the economy.—NP

Today’s top finance reads.

Stat: 7.31%. That’s the US mortgage rate this week, a 23-year high. With interest rates high and housing stock low, both buyers and sellers are staying put for now. (CNN Business)

Quote: “More likely than not, we are going to see a government shutdown. The question is for how long. How long it lasts has a real impact on American households, to a greater extent than just if it happens or not.”—Emerson Sprick, Bipartisan Policy Center senior economic analyst, on the possibility of a government shutdown on October 1. (CNBC)

Read: Employers are starting to fight back against rising healthcare costs—and winning. (the Wall Street Journal).

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