Public Offering, Private Doubts

摘要

The offices of William M. and Susan K. Dunkley are where you would expect them to be. He's chairman and CEO, she's president, and they sit in the corner of an L-shaped, single-story building in Plymouth, Minn., near Minneapolis. But these comer offices are about more than status. The corner literally divides the Dunkleys' business life in two. To the right is the headquarters of New Horizon Kids Quest Inc., a publicly held company that operates children's entertainment centers. On the left is the home office of New Horizon Enterprises, a privately owned chain of day-care centers. Life wasn't always so disjointed for this couple, who hold the same titles in both companies. For 28 years, they built the private New Horizon Enterprises into a successful, Minnesota-wide operation in the low-margin business of full-time day care. Then, in 1995, they split off the entertainment component in an initial public offering.