Last year, the Staff of the Division of Corporation Finance announced that it would expand its acceptance of draft registration statement submissions from emerging growth companies to all companies seeking a review of their registration statement. This expansion of the confidential registration statement review process was made available for both initial public offerings (“IPOs”) and those offerings within one year of a public company’s IPO.  Notwithstanding the expanded availability, the process of the non-public, confidential review was left unchanged requiring issuers to publicly file the confidentially submitted registration statement (and other nonpublic draft submissions) at least 15 days prior to any marketed offering presentation or at least 15 days prior to the requested effective date of the registration statement.

As a result of the aforementioned expanded confidential review process, on March 16, 2018, the Staff of the Division of Investment Management announced that it will similarly accept draft registration statements that are submitted by a business development company (“BDC”), even if the BDC does not qualify as an emerging growth company, for nonpublic, confidential review. The Division also will similarly accept for nonpublic, confidential review draft registration statements relating to offerings that are submitted by BDCs within one year of an IPO.

A copy of the Division of Investment Management’s announcement is available here.