The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation issued on December 16, 2022 its 2022 Annual Report to the U.S. Congress and to the SEC detailing how entrepreneurs, investors, and private and smaller public companies are engaging in capital raising. The Report provides a wealth of data from the
Research
Global VC Funding Trends in 2022 Q3
The CB Insights’ State of Venture Report for the third quarter of 2022 notes that global venture funding declined to $74.5 billion in the third quarter, down 58% from the funding peak in the fourth quarter of 2021. This represents a quarter-over-quarter contraction of 34%, the largest quarterly percentage drop in a decade, with the…
Global Tech Valuation Trends
The CB Insights’ recently-published Tech Valuations Report comments on technology company valuations trends and reports on a continued decline during the third quarter of the year. The report attributes this in part to continued cautiousness on the part of investors given market volatility.
The report indicates that median tech valuations dropped across most investment stages…
Analysis of the Decade-Long Climate Change Disclosure Endeavor
In its recent white paper, “Climate Change Disclosure Report: From Omission to Commission,” Intelligize revisits the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) climate change-related disclosure guidance. The report notes that the SEC only has provided guidance twice, first in 2010 and again in 2021. The report expresses that the SEC’s 2010 interpretive guidance addressing companies’…
Insider Giving
In their article Insider Giving in Duke Law Journal, S. Burcu Avci, Cindy A. Schipani, H. Nejat Seyhun, and Andrew Verstein, use their dataset to illustrate the scope, strategies, and effects of insider giving. In this context, insider giving refers to shareholders with inside information and/or the ability to backdate their gifts donating securities to…
2021 SPAC Market Trends: Down in the Third Quarter?
In a report issued by Pitchbook related to the SPAC market, quarterly trends show a recent dip. There were 317 SPAC IPOs completed in the first quarter of 2021, but a steep decline in the second quarter, with only 106 SPAC IPOs completed. Consistent with this trend, the third quarter has seen 111 SPAC IPOs. …
The Effect of Analyst Coverage on Corporate Decisionmaking
Many recent press articles lamenting “short-termism” in corporate America blame research analysts for focusing on quarterly earnings. In a recent paper titled, “Analyst Coverage and the Quality of Corporate Investment Decisions” authors Thomas To, Marco A. Navone and Eliza Wu demonstrate a causal connection between analyst coverage and good investment decisions. The authors…
Securities Related Bills Pass in the House of Representatives
A number of capital formation-related bills passed in the House this week with bipartisan support. These include:
- H.R. 5877, the “Main Street Growth Act,” sponsored by Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN), which would amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to allow for the registration of venture exchanges with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
- H.R. 5970,
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Other Legislative Proposals Affecting Capital Formation
There are a number of legislative proposals making their way through the House, including: H.R. 5054, the Small Company Disclosure Simplification Act of 2018, which provides EGCs and smaller reporting companies an exemption from xBRL requirements (referred to in our prior blog post), H.R. 6035, the Streamlining Communications for Investors Act, which is a…
SEC Proposes Expanding Safe Harbor to Promote Research on Investment Funds
On May 23, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “Commission”) proposed establishing a research report safe harbor (Rule 139b) for unaffiliated brokers or dealers that publish or distribute research reports that cover investment funds. The Commission took this action in furtherance of the mandate of the Fair Access to Investment Research Act of 2017…