nem has 3000 original stake holders and a new proof importance algo which means that the nodes that are more important to the network "mine/forge" more than those with simply more coins. which fixes the hoarding issues inherent in nxt. 3000 stake holders will get equal amounts, there was not an ipo, its was a "pay a fee, join the movement" sort of thing. so even the ipo does no favor those with better finances. also the stake holder list went through weeks of taint analysis and auditing to remove sock puppets.
All of this you could have avoided by just using a mechanism that requires you to pay the market value for any stake, such as a PoW..
that mechanism is far less than optimal for many reasons and excludes those who don't have mining gear and favours those with higher powered mining gear. It's no different to "rich getting richer" in nxt. In that respect, pow is elitist