Monday, November 9, 2009

The Decline of the IPO

I saw on CNBC this morning that the Initial Public Offering is in a secular (long-term) decline in the United States. You may think this is a recent event, tracking to Sarbanes-Oxley or the 2008 crash ... and you'd be wrong. It goes back to around 1997.

In general, this is a bad thing. An open market is a very efficient allocator of capital. There are many more transaction costs in raising money through private equity than in the open market.

So, if it's a bad thing, why is it happening and can anything be done? Here's one idea and I'll try to stay on this topic for a bit to see how it develops.

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