Going Public by Direct Listing
Felix Salmon argues, convincingly in my view, in favor of Spotify’s reported plan to go public by direct listing, not a traditional IPO. A little background, for those unfamiliar with the term: The usual way to go public is via an initial public offering of shares, where the company creates new shares in addition to the ones in existence, sells them to the public through an underwriter, and all old and new shares are thereafter publicly traded on an exchange. However, it’s not always the case that the company actually needs the new capital it ends up raising by selling new shares. Direct listing skips this step; instead, the company just flips a switch and becomes public. (Of course it’s more complicated than literally flipping a switch – you hire, well, me to help you through the process. But it’s certainly simpler than having to market and complete a new offering of stock as part of it.)
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One recent much-discussed political issue (at least until another one replaced it a few hours later) was that some of the Republican members of Congress admitted in interviews that they had not read the American Health Care Act of 2017 before voting to approve it. Democrats mocked this as further evidence of a rushed, irresponsible process. I’m not using this corporate and securities law blog to expound on my political views on the AHCA or anything else. (I do that about once every three months on my personal Facebook page.) However, on the general question of whether legislators should be expected to have read the full text of the bills they’re voting on, I’m with the “that’s a ridiculous waste of time” camp.
The Financial Samurai personal finance blog posted 
My law firm recently joined 
When I am speaking to potential new clients, my pitch is pretty simple: I’m the same guy that would have handled your matter when I was with a big firm, but without the big firm infrastructure, I’m able to offer those same services at more reasonable rates and with more personal service. Fortunately, I’ve found that appeal works more often than not, and I’ve built a nice practice. Sometimes, however, potential clients will elect to go with a larger firm. Certainly, there are matters that are better handled by teams at large firms (multi-billion dollar merger, IPO underwritten by first-tier investment bank), but there are certain transactions that I’m capable of handling, where the potential client makes what seems to be the safer choice of a larger firm. (I don’t want to come off as too harsh about big firms, where there are many fine lawyers – and they’re a significant source of referrals for me!)
The New York Times recently 
The Wall Street Journal reported recently on the 
The Wall Street Journal recently profiled 
The SEC’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis (DERA) recently issued 
I thought it would be helpful to list these posts (through January 2017) in one handy place for easy reference, with links, in reverse chronological order within each category:
Of the many times that I’ve worked on a corporate deal – not a simple agreement, but a transaction of some complexity involving multiple documents and perhaps multiple parties – it is extremely rare that the transaction got done early, in advance of the target closing date set at the beginning of the process. This is not necessarily the fault of anyone involved, but it’s a matter of deal-making being a process with a lot of moving parts that takes time. This causes some frustration, usually among the principals more than the attorneys. Although there’s no magic bullet that will cause deals to get done instantaneously, the following are some tips that will expedite the process in a manner that doesn’t cause unnecessary stress and hard feelings: