In my paper, Revisiting “Truth in Securities Revisited”: Abolishing IPOs and Harnessing Private Markets in the Public Good, I explore the possibility of doing away with initial public offerings. In their place, I propose an expanded system of company registration under which companies would have to trade in private markets for a seasoning period, with mandatory disclosure, before they would be allowed to sell their shares to the public at large. I argue that such system would promote not only efficient capital formation, but also investor protection.

Under the current regime, companies can stay private until one of three triggering events occurs: 1) the company lists its shares for trading on a securities exchange; 2) the company makes a registered public offering; or 3) the company exceeds 2,000 shareholders. Typically, companies trigger public company status through an initial offering of shares, with simultaneous listing of those shares on an exchange. The decision to make an initial public offering, however, is frequently made because the company is pushing the limit on the number of shareholders as a result of prior private issues to employees and early-round investors.

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