SEC Disclosure Matters

The SEC has issued its long-expected proposed rules regarding SPACs. Here are the proposing rule release and the shorter press release. The SEC has always been skeptical of SPACs, and the rules are generally designed to impose new disclosure requirements on SPACs that make the rules more aligned with those applicable to traditional IPOs. One of the reasons SPACs had their moment in the sun recently is that they are easier to complete than IPOs, so the rules, if enacted, could have the effect of severely dampening the market for SPACs, even if they do nothing to directly restrict them from being done. In fact, the general expectation that rules like these were coming down the pike has, anecdotally, been a factor in the SPAC market slowing down recently.

One of the key areas in the proposed rules relates to projections. Under current rules, companies merging with a SPAC can include projections about the company’s future expected results and can benefit from a safe harbor protecting it from litigation if the projections don’t come to pass, as long as the projections are accompanied by a disclaimer and the companies don’t have actual knowledge that they won’t come true. In contrast, companies going public the traditional way don’t have the benefit of this safe harbor. The proposed rules would eliminate the safe harbor in the SPAC context, which would have the practical effect of precluding most projections from being presented.

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The SEC’s SPAC Proposal and ProjectionsRead More »

The SEC’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis (DERA) recently issued a paper about over-the-counter stocks, i.e., stocks of publicly traded companies that are not listed on a national securities exchange like the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq. While the main subject of the paper is on the inadvisability of individual investors purchasing OTC stocks, my focus here, briefly addressed in the paper, is on whether the companies themselves should consider transactions that result in them having OTC stock. For example, companies that are not in a position to complete a traditional IPO may be able to go public via a backdoor method such as merger with a SPAC or a reverse merger.

For these companies, the usual plan is not to remain an OTC company forever, with thinly traded stock and low institutional ownership. Rather, the hope is that, with the capital usually raised concurrently with the transaction that made the company public, it can successfully execute its business plan such that it can meet the listing standards for admission on the NYSE or Nasdaq at a later date. However, this scenario rarely plays out in practice. Studies cited in the DERA paper find that, over a nine-year period, less than 9% of OTC companies became listed on an exchange, and even those that do have a poor average investment return.

Accordingly, any company planning to go public by alternative means has to consider the possibility of remaining in OTC status indefinitely. There are some advantages to being public. It may be easier to attract employees with equity compensation packages, since there is an easier path to eventually selling shares than would be the case with a private company. Also, public company stock can be used to acquire other companies (though a target company may be skeptical about receiving OTC stock). Finally, there are forms of financing like PIPEs that are available only to public companies (though the terms of those transactions are not necessarily any more company-favorable than investments that private companies can secure).

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The Pitfalls of Being an OTC Public CompanyRead More »