Luis A. Aguilar is a Commissioner at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This post is based on Commissioner Aguilar’s recent public statement; the full text, including footnotes, is available here. The views expressed in the post are those of Commissioner Aguilar and do not necessarily reflect those of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the other Commissioners, or the Staff.
Small businesses are vital to our nation’s economic growth and well-being. In fact, our nation’s small business owners create almost two out of every three new jobs and employ more than half of the U.S. workforce. It is therefore important to provide opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors to come together and put capital to productive uses through the development of new ideas, products, and services that make America stronger and create new jobs that bring financial security.
Ultimately, the success of small businesses depends on their ability to access capital. To that end, because many small businesses are thought to have more difficulty than established businesses in getting traditional loans, Congress has provided the Commission with authority to promulgate rules to facilitate access by small businesses to financing from the capital markets.
In order for these rules to be successful, and, just as critically, sustainable, the Commission is tasked with creating an ecosystem for capital formation that works for small businesses and investors alike. Thus, the challenge is to develop a system that enables businesses to raise capital in a cost-effective way and, at the same time, provide ways to benefit and protect investors. After all, without investors, there can be no capital formation.
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