The listing closes. The shares start trading. You celebrate; maybe you get a tombstone made. Then everyone who helped you get there moves on to the next deal.
What comes next is yours to manage, and it does not get simpler once the transaction is behind you.
This series of articles takes the accountant's perspective on going public in Canada.
Part One covered the decision: what you are actually weighing, what it costs, and what happens to your tax position the moment you stop being a Canadian-Controlled Private Corporation. Part Two covered the execution: the four paths to a public listing, the real timeline and cost breakdown, and why your accounting advisor needs to be in the room before the investment banker. Part Three covers what happens after. The ongoing obligations of being a listed company, the recurring costs that do not appear in the go-public budget, the governance structure you now answer to, and the accountant's role once the prospectus is filed and the capital is raised.
Some founders and owners find public company life genuinely rewarding. The access to capital, the profile, the discipline that external accountability creates. Others find it exhausting. Both are common. What this article is designed to do is make sure you know what life as a public company in Canada actually looks like before you make the decision, not after you go public.
In Canada, public companies are reporting issuers. That status comes with a legal obligation to keep the market informed of material developments on a continuous basis. The framework governing this is National Instrument 51-102 (NI 51-102), published by the Canadian Securities Administrators.
Continuous disclosure has two components. The first is periodic: quarterly and annual financial statements, management's discussion and analysis, and annual information forms filed on a recurring schedule. The second is immediate: material change reports that must be filed when something happens that a reasonable investor would consider important to a trading decision.
That second category is where founders and owners are often caught off guard. A material change is not just a quarterly earnings miss. It can include a major contract win or loss, the departure of a key executive, a regulatory investigation, a significant acquisition or disposition, or any development that would reasonably be expected to affect the price or value of the company's securities. Under NI 51-102, material changes must be disclosed by news release promptly and a material change report filed within ten days. There is no "wait and see" window. There is no "let's see how this develops" period. The obligation triggers when the change is known to management.
The consequence of getting continuous disclosure wrong is not hypothetical. The OSC and other provincial regulators enforce these obligations. Trading halts, enforcement proceedings, reputational damage, and shareholder litigation are all real outcomes. The practical approach is to establish a disclosure committee early, with clear protocols for what constitutes a material change and how the decision to disclose gets made. Your accounting advisor and securities counsel should both be part of that process.
The test is not whether management thinks the news is material. It is whether a reasonable investor in the market would consider it important. That is a lower bar than many founders expect, and it requires ongoing judgment. Getting comfortable with that judgment, and with the process for making it quickly, is one of the real adjustments of public company life.
Once listed, your company runs on a filing calendar. It is predictable, it is non-negotiable, and it competes directly with the time you need to run the business.
For most reporting issuers on the TSX, interim financial statements and management's discussion and analysis must be filed within 45 days of each quarter-end. Audited annual financial statements, MD&A, and the Annual Information Form (AIF) must be filed within 90 days of fiscal year-end. Venture issuers on the TSXV or CSE have slightly extended deadlines (60 days for quarterly, 120 days for annual), but the cadence is the same: four times a year, every year, without exception. Note there is currently a pilot project running for small venture issuers (revenue under $10 million) that have been a reporting issuer in Canada for at least 12 months to file semi-annually instead of quarterly.
Everything goes to SEDAR+, Canada's public filing system. Once filed, it is publicly searchable. Competitors read it. Short sellers read it. Journalists read it. Activist shareholders read it. If your financials reveal a margin problem, a covenant issue, or a strategic pivot that is not working, that information is now public.
Management's discussion and analysis is not a summary of the financial statements. It is management's own explanation of the results: what drove revenue, why margins moved, what the liquidity position looks like, what risks are on the horizon, and what the company's outlook is for the coming period. But the most significant part is a discussion of how the business is doing. It is written by management, reviewed by the audit committee, and signed off by the Board before filing. Every quarter. For a private company owner accustomed to keeping that analysis internal, the shift to writing it for public consumption is a real adjustment.
The first few quarters are the hardest. Building a repeatable process for preparing quarterly financials and drafting MD&A within the filing window requires internal capacity, external accounting support, or both. Many companies that go public underestimate this. The filing deadline does not move because the quarter was busy.
You converted to IFRS to list, and your financial statements now follow IFRS permanently. Any changes in IFRS standards require adoption and disclosure. If your auditors or accounting advisor flag an upcoming IFRS change that affects your reporting, that is not optional maintenance. It becomes part of your annual reporting obligations.
Public companies in Canada are required to have an audit committee. Under National Instrument 52-110, the committee must have at least three members, a majority of whom must be independent, and at least one of whom must be financially literate. The committee oversees the company's financial reporting process, its internal controls, and the relationship with the external auditor.
What this means in practice is that the founder or owner no longer controls the auditor relationship directly. The audit committee hires and, if necessary, fires the auditor. Management presents financial statements to the committee for review before they are filed. The CEO and CFO certify those filings personally under National Instrument 52-109.
The broader governance shift is equally significant. Decisions that can now require board and even shareholder approval include executive compensation, major transactions, and related-party dealings. The ability to move quickly and quietly is gone. Governance processes are now formalized and can cause friction and delays once you are operating as a public company. On the flip side, a properly constituted Board can provide invaluable insight and experience to assist in guiding the company.
Under National Instrument 55-104, insiders of a reporting issuer, including directors, officers, and significant shareholders, must report changes to their ownership of the company's securities within five days of any transaction. You are also generally subject to blackout periods that restrict trading around quarterly filing windows and other sensitive periods, and most public companies require pre-clearance before any insider transaction.
Selling shares in your own company is no longer a private decision. It is a disclosed transaction, visible to the market, timed around blackout windows, and subject to pre-clearance. Founders who thought of their equity as liquid capital once the company was listed often find the actual mechanics of monetization more constrained than expected.
Governance requirements differ by exchange tier and issuer category. TSXV and CSE have some modified requirements for venture issuers compared to full TSX reporting issuers. The principles are the same but the specific thresholds, committee compositions, and filing timelines can vary. Founders and owners should confirm specific requirements with their securities counsel. The accounting and governance dimensions of audit committee oversight and financial reporting are where Forbes Andersen's role is relevant; the securities law dimensions belong to qualified securities counsel.
Investor relations is not a press release function. It is the ongoing job of managing the relationship between the company and the people who own a piece of it: current shareholders, prospective investors, analysts covering the stock, and the financial media. For a newly listed company without a dedicated IR team, that work typically falls on the CEO or CFO, often at the worst possible times.
The recurring IR calendar can include quarterly earnings updates or calls, an annual general meeting, shareholder correspondence, and maintenance of a current investor presentation. The AGM is a formal obligation: public companies must hold an annual general meeting of shareholders within a required timeframe, with formal proxy materials, a management information circular, and shareholder voting on various matters.
For mid-market companies fresh off a listing, the IR workload often catches management off guard. Institutional investors ask detailed questions about financial performance and strategy. Retail shareholders ask different questions. Short sellers, if the stock attracts them, often ask no questions at all and communicate exclusively through their trading positions. Learning to manage market communication, maintain consistent messaging, and respond to the rhythm of quarterly results is a genuine operational capability that private companies do not need and public companies cannot avoid.
For companies with cross-border or international operations, the UHY global network provides access to resources and market knowledge across multiple jurisdictions. Forbes Andersen's affiliation with UHY and the Forbes Andersen Limited structure supports clients who operate beyond Canadian borders and need accounting, tax, and advisory continuity across markets.
The go-public budget gets a lot of attention. The ongoing cost of staying public gets less. It should not.
Once listed, the following become permanent line items:
The honest summary: increased expenses, constant compliance (it never stops), governance obligations, and the loss of the privacy that comes with being a private company. None of this is a reason not to go public. It is a reason to go in with clear eyes.
The go-public transaction ends. The accounting work does not.
Forbes Andersen has been in the go-public role many times: preparing projections, converting financial statements to IFRS, writing Management Discussion and Analysis, quarterbacking auditors and lawyers, building and vetting prospectuses and listing statements, and taking some of the pressure off management. That same relationship and those same capabilities continue after the listing closes.
In the ongoing public company context, our role shifts from the pre-listing sprint to the quarterly and annual rhythm: preparing and reviewing IFRS financial statements and MD&A, managing the annual audit, vetting projections, operational and expansion plans, serving as a member of management, and ongoing tax planning as the company's circumstances evolve post-listing.
Post-listing tax planning is not a minor footnote. The tax consequences discussed in Part One of this series (the transition from CCPC status, eligible dividends, LCGE planning windows, stock option treatment) do not resolve themselves at the listing date. They continue to play out in executive compensation design, dividend policy, and corporate structure decisions. Public company shares tend to have reduced stock option benefits versus their private company counterparts, and managing that trade-off in compensation planning is a recurring advisory matter.
For companies that are growing post-listing, pursuing acquisitions, or considering a future US cross-listing, the tax and accounting dimensions only multiply. The decision about when to engage, and on what basis, is better made before the first quarterly filing deadline than after.
The best time to have the conversation about what ongoing support looks like is before the first quarter closes, not when the filing window is three weeks out and the team is underwater.
Going public is not an endpoint. It is a transition to a different kind of company, with a different cost structure, a different governance reality, and a different relationship with the public that owns a piece of it.
The three articles in this series were designed to give founders and owners the accountant's view of what that transition actually means, before the process starts, not during. Part One covered the decision. Part Two covered the execution. This article covered what comes after.
The compliance does not stop at the closing dinner. The quarterly clock starts the moment the listing is effective. The audit committee meets before the first financials are filed. The insider trading policy applies from day one. And the costs, both the obvious ones and the ones that only become visible in year two, run indefinitely.
That is not an argument against going public. Many of the companies Forbes Andersen has worked with have found the access to capital, the market profile, and the governance discipline to be genuinely transformative. It is an argument for making the decision with full information and for having the right team around you before, during, and after.
If you are evaluating a go-public transaction or have recently completed one and want to understand what the ongoing obligations and costs look like for your specific situation, contact our team. The conversation is easier before the first filing window than after.
Continuous disclosure is the legal obligation of public companies in Canada to keep the market informed of material developments on an ongoing basis, governed by National Instrument 51-102. The obligation has two components: periodic filings on a quarterly and annual schedule (financial statements, MD&A, AIF), and immediate disclosure of material changes by news release and formal material change report within ten days. The obligation runs as long as the company is a reporting issuer.
Most reporting issuers must file interim financial statements and MD&A within 45 days of each quarter-end, and audited annual financial statements, MD&A, and an Annual Information Form within 90 days of fiscal year-end. Venture issuers on the TSXV or CSE have extended deadlines of 60 days for quarterly filings and 120 days for annual filings. All filings are made through SEDAR+ and are publicly accessible.
Under National Instrument 52-110, the audit committee oversees the company's financial reporting process, internal controls, and the relationship with the external auditor. It must have at least three members, a majority independent, with at least one financially literate member. The committee reviews financial statements before they are filed and reports to the board. The CEO and CFO certify filings personally under NI 52-109.
Annual costs vary significantly by company size and exchange, but founders and owners should plan for recurring audit and legal fees of $150,000 to $300,000 or more per year, for continuous disclosure and governance matters, quarterly financial reporting support, annual exchange listing fees, and D&O insurance that carries a significantly higher premium than private company coverage. Many newly public companies also engage Fractional CFO and Controller services to manage the reporting cycle. The total ongoing compliance cost is a real number that belongs in the go-public decision from the start.
Under National Instrument 55-104, insiders of a reporting issuer, including directors, officers, and significant shareholders, must report changes to their ownership of the company's securities within five days of any transaction. Insiders are also subject to blackout periods around quarterly filing windows and, in most companies, pre-clearance requirements before any insider trade. These obligations begin at the time of listing and apply for as long as the individual holds insider status.
Many companies that complete a go-public transaction do not have the internal finance capacity to manage quarterly reporting obligations, audit preparation, and continuous disclosure requirements without additional support. Fractional CFO and Controller services can fill that gap cost-effectively, particularly in the first two years post-listing when reporting processes are being established. The cost of fractional support is typically well below the cost of a full-time CFO hire at the public company compensation level.
This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute tax, legal, or financial advice. Tax laws and securities requirements change frequently, and their application varies based on individual circumstances. Please consult a qualified professional at Forbes Andersen LLP before making any decisions based on this information.
Mike Johnston, CPA, CA, is a partner at Forbes Andersen LLP specializing in going public transactions and financial reporting (IFRS, ASPE, US GAAP). If you would like additional information regarding your organization's going public or financial reporting requirements, contact our team.
