Reps. Meeks and Budd Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Encourage IPOs

Reps. Meeks and Budd Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Encourage IPOs

Washington, D.C.—Senior Member of the Financial Services Committee, Congressman Meeks, and Representative Ted Budd (R-NC) released the following joint statement, after announcing their introduction of a bipartisan bill to encourage initial public offerings (IPO) for private companies:

"Taking a company public is a crucial option for entrepreneurs, allowing them to access funding, build on their ideas, and create jobs," Rep. Meeks said. "Yet, inherent in the current framework are barriers and costs, which should be minimized to allow companies to grow sustainably. In addition to protecting investors by maintaining reasonable safeguards, Congress should help create a streamlined process that keeps IPOs viable for budding businesses. Working bipartisanly with my colleague Rep. Budd, we'll seek to identify sensible ways of achieving that end."

"Our country has long had the deepest and best capitalized equity markets in the world," Rep. Budd said. "However, we've seen some slippage in that status in recent years. Last year, initial public offerings were at their lowest since 2009. Our bill builds on SEC decisions earlier in the year that allow all companies to take advantage of confidential initial public offerings and follow-on offerings. My hope is to do two things: ensure that the public has a fair shot at the investment opportunities presented by companies newly listing on exchanges, and to allow those companies lower-risk access to the equity markets."

The Budd-Meeks bill has three provisions:

-First, it would expand the JOBS Act's confidential registration provisions beyond emerging growth companies to all issuers.

-Second, it would allow confidential registration for follow-on offerings for all issuers. Current law provides this capacity only to emerging growth companies. Both of these provisions would codify into law actions undertaken by the Securities Exchange Commission earlier this year.

-Finally, the Budd-Meeks legislation would expand the testing the waters provision in the JOBS Act to all issuers, allowing companies in the initial public offerings process to gauge accredited and institutional investor interest in a securities offering.