This morning’s first panel features Robert Bartlett, Reza Dibadj, and Martin Zwilling, discussing the JOBS Act’s Title I provisions for initial public offerings.
The panelists were asked to predict which part of Title 1 of the JOBS Act will have the biggest impact on IPO offerings?
Reza Dibadj discussed the way in which the JOBS Act allows emerging growth companies to escape the onerous accounting and reporting required by the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation. Furthermore, companies are taking advantage of the opportunity to withhold executive compensation information.
Martin Zwilling emphasized that any changes to the law which decrease the number of regulatory hoops that have to be jumped through is beneficial to the IPO process. Some companies have had to dramatically increase their personnel and time resources to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley.
Robert Bartlett looked to the statistics about the parts of the JOBS Act actually being employed to understand which parts of the act are most effective. A Skadden, Arps study concluded that emerging growth companies are taking advantage of withholding executive compensation but are still revealing three or more years of financial records even though the legislation permits them to offer with only two years of reports. Seventy percent of emerging growth companies are also taking advantage of the ability to submit their prospective IPO offer to the SEC privately.
Stay with The Network for further updates from the Berkeley Business Law Journal JOBS Act Symposium.