The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation, will convene a roundtable today in partnership with the SEC’s Division of Corporate Finance to discuss the initial public offering (IPO) ecosystem.
Entitled “Rethinking the Rulebook: Modernizing the IPO Process and Access to Public Capital,” the initiative is part of the Commission’s efforts to “Make IPOs Great Again” after years of neglect.
As everyone should know, most promising young firms aim to remain private for as long as possible. This is because policymakers have pursued a rule-upon-regulation approach in overseeing public firms. The cost of compliance continues to rise while the benefits have diminished. In effect, it has become a hidden tax on the economy. The old thesis that government officials are a hammer looking for a nail, in an attempt to justify their existence, with diminishing returns for consumers, holds true here.
At the same time, there is an ocean of money eager to jump to the head of the queue for capital gains, investing before a firm becomes public – if it ever does.
The loser in all of this is the little guy, once again, as policymakers strive to save them from themselves, thus exacerbating the wealth gap.
The panelists for the session include:
- Beau Bohm, Managing Director, Global Co-Head of Equity Capital Markets, Cantor Fitzgerald
- Joshua Ford Bonnie, Partner, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett
- Jaime Klima, General Counsel, NYSE
- Ryan Mitteness, Partner, Fenwick & West
- Daniel Zinn, General Counsel & Chief of Staff, OTC Markets Group
The session will be moderated by Courtney Haseley of the Advocate office and Ted Yu from CorpFin.
The meeting starts at 2 PM ET today and will be livestreamed on the SEC website.
