Tag: IPO
IPO mix and match?
You might want to take a look at this interesting column from Bloomberg’s Matt Levine, talking about some recent developments in the IPO market. Apparently, a second company is contemplating conducting an IPO through a direct listing, a listing process run outside of the conventional underwritten offering in which the company files with the SEC to allow certain of its outstanding shares to be sold directly into the market, without the traditional help from the underwriters in marketing the deal. Although the company does not raise any funds itself, it becomes a public company and provides a market in which shares may sold by selling shareholders at prevailing market prices. The process may be particularly appealing to companies that are very well known and well funded, but want to trade publicly, since the costs of going public are generally lower and the process can be somewhat quicker than a traditional IPO.
Is the SEC about to allow all companies to “test the waters”?
The WSJ is reporting that “people familiar with the matter”—every reporter’s favorite source—say that the SEC is “weighing” expanding “test the waters” beyond just EGCs. You might recall that, in 2012, the JOBS Act allowed IPO candidates that were EGCs to take preliminary steps to determine the potential level of investor interest before committing to the expensive and time-consuming prospectus drafting and SEC review process. That flexibility, together with the new confidential IPO filing process—which allowed EGCs to start the SEC review process on a confidential basis so that sensitive information would not be disclosed if they ultimately determined not to move forward with the offering—was intended to promote and facilitate access to the public capital markets. Since that time, however, the IPO market has not exactly taken off like a rocket, and the hand-wringing over the lack of interest in going public has continued. In June 2017, Corp Fin extended the confidential filing process, permitting non-EGCs to submit confidential draft registration statement for IPOs and for most offerings made in the first year after going public. Will testing the waters be the next step?
SEC Chair Jay Clayton discusses principles guiding his tenure at the SEC
In his first public speech as SEC Chair, Jay Clayton outlined for the Economic Club of New York eight principles that he aims to guide his tenure as Chair. In discussing these principles and some ways in which he plans to put them into practice, Clayton seemed to stress the need to focus more intently on the various costs of regulatory compliance—in dollars, in time, in effort, in complexity and in economic impact. In particular, Clayton drew attention to a reduction in the number of public companies in recent years—a “roughly 50% decline in the total number of U.S.-listed public companies over the last two decades”—attributing the decline at least in part to the expansion of disclosure requirements, in some cases beyond materiality. To address this issue, he asserted, the SEC “should review its rules retrospectively” from the perspective of the cumulative effect of required disclosure, not just each incremental slice. Finally, he noted that the SEC “has several initiatives underway to improve the disclosure available to investors, “ including implementation of recommendations contained in the SEC staff’s Report on Modernization and Simplification of Regulation S-K (see this PubCo post). According to Clayton, the staff “is making good progress on preparing rulemaking proposals based on this report….”
What’s up with the declining number of IPOs?
At a meeting on Thursday of the SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee, a panel discussed the declining number of IPOs, a topic that seems to be top of mind for many in the securities arena. Of course, there’s a reason for that; according to a panelist from EY, there were about 8,000 public companies in 1996, but only about 4,000 now. What happened?
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