Posts Tagged ‘take my company public’
Going public, the be all and end all to economic relief for the right companies. If you have a solid business process, profits, a solid infrastructure and scalable business model then yes, going public may be just what you need to get to the next level. Make sure your IR is set up and budget long term for this solution and keep your C level executives on TV and radio and other mass publicity venues that will have your stock price above the name of the company, below the executives name.
But if you are going public because you’re broke and a startup, the combination of the two is a stew that guarantees failure. Investors will poke holes in your business model, corporate infrastructure and board of director pedigrees faster than you can say ‘pump and dump’ and when they do, know this, it will be public and it will be messy.
When going public you need to make sure that your executives are the most elite of the elite and that each board member is serving a specific purpose and contributes in specialty niche as well as offering a recognizable name, whether the name be their name or the company that they represent.
Your executive lineup needs to read like the who’s who of the industry. Your strategic alliances need to look like an ocean of executive samurai lined up to trample any company that could represent even a modest competitive notion.
Your attorneys need to instill fear in defamers and your compliance auditors need to be squeaky clean with a reputation for never bending to the ease of shortcuts. These things, when combined with each other will create massive investor confidence with rapid volume trading growth and an overall business model that will thrive in the public marketplace.
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I deal with S1 attorneys all day every day and most of them are entrepreneurial, hard working and interested in helping you in any way they can but there are also a lot of bad ones out there. If you are taking your company public the last thing you want is a broke as a joke s1 filing agent.
I recently had the misfortune of working with (for a very short time I might add) a New Jersey lawyer who had us all convinced by her pepper gray hair and fluency of legal jargon as a second language and quick calls to what she had us convinced where big shot investors who had millions to put into this and other transactions we brought her way.
During initial negotiations she and I sat down in a coffee shop and went over her equity position and fees in the transactions that she’d be working on for us and it was pretty simple and straight forward. I would have my team organize and structure the company and transaction and she would simply file the s1 in exchange for 2% to 3% equity. Pretty nice payday for minimal work and gaining equity in an average company producing $5m+ per year.
Ah yes, but when it sounds too good to be true it is and when it seems too easy of a negotiation…it is! When she sent us the contract she felt the need to add a few percentage points to the tune of 7%, making a total of 10% equity and she also was charging an extra $10k to fill in the blanks on your prototypical PPM doc. Why did she jack up the price? Her response was, “This S1 will have comments”. I almost died laughing. Of course it’s going to have comments with the SEC, that’s why it’s called the ‘comments’ stage.
We talked her into taking 2 payments for the $10k, half upfront and half on completion but we really should have dumped her right there. She didn’t want to keep her word on that either so I paid her the last payment before the fee was due and just got rid of her.
Turns out she never filed an s1 before and her whole act was a sham. She was desperate for cash and nickled and dimed us the whole time. I laugh about it now but it wasn’t funny when it happened. We lost over a month of transaction time because she couldn’t tell the truth.
The client was going public on the OTCBB with a valuation of around $5m, her suggestion was to raise capital pre public for $1 per share because the company would have a hard time qualifying for the NASDAQ if it started at anything less than $1. This company was years away from even considering the NASDAQ as an option but her in experience and need to prolong the deal to rape us for fees was so blatant and careless that she did everything she could to add as much confusion to the deal as possible so that no one knew what was going on, therefore she got away with a lot and was able to pick our pockets for weeks before we got rid of her.
The moral of the story is this: not all attorneys are rich. The truth is, most are very modest as far as their earnings. There is too much competition these days so there are predatory lawyers out there that will lie, double talk, triple talk and run you around in circles. All the while the clock is ticking and they are billing you like it’s going out of style. Watch your back with the dead broke S1 lawyer.
S1 Filing, Valuations, Take Your Company Public and Investor Relations Free Video Download , Take Your Business Public and Globalize Your Business call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183 Check out the Public Market’s Number 1 Industry Blog We Can Make Global Growth Happen For Your Company
I wish I could say that I wasn’t writing this article from experience but that would be a lie. I wish I could say that chemistry is never an issue between the consultant, S1 attorney and newly elected board members but that would be nave.
The truth is some attorneys who perform great on some public offerings are an absolute nightmare on other transactions. Some board members with a gargantuan size portfolio of contacts are worth the aggravation on some deals but on others fall flat on their face as they try to take the whole company to the ground with them.
The reality is qualifying an attorney for the process of an S1 filing goes far beyond whether they’ve got time and experience under their belt. You need to ask the more difficult questions that are almost impossible to test for such as, how do they react in stressful situations? Are they open to stepping outside of their comfort zone to engage in cutting edge filing strategies to speed up the offering process? Do they help with the fundraising? Are they able to refer a PCAOB auditor and a market maker to file the 15c211?
These are things that need to be addressed with your S1 attorney but are difficult to actually test beforehand.
Each lawyer is different and all I can say is sit down with them and drill them with a million different questions from a multitude of angles to test their knowledge and their patience. Watch their facial expressions, hand gestures, eye and forehead shift. Look for a bouncing leg or foot and other nervous habits and what questions did you ask to trigger this nervous twitch?
The same techniques can be used for qualifying a board member. The only way to get the best idea of whether there is a fit is to push them to the brink during the interview?
Be careful with this as many qualified professionals could easily take this challenge as disrespect and they’ll walk so don’t be rude or arrogant but with a placid look on your face and a calm voice, drill them and drill them hard.
Many consultants in this industry, myself included had to learn this lesson the hard way and took a lot of time and effort to correct the mistake of bringing on the wrong individual for the solution we were seeking.
This is an extremely high stress industry and the environment is constantly at 100 degrees.
Concentrate on being calm, forward thinking, compromising on some issues and uncompromising on others, write down 10 pages of questions and when you sit down with the candidate ask all those questions and other questions that come to mind during the meeting. Test them, push them and get the right person for the job.
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Think back to when you were a child and your imagination was developing? You’d hear a bump from your closet or your eyes would play tricks on you as you swore you could see something slithering under your bed when the hallway light was turned off or when you’d creep, with back to the wall to the bathroom in the middle of the night and you could feel the energy of something staring at you from the opposite end of the hall’s expanse, you look up and sure enough you’d see a cast shadow made visible by the glow of a full moon peering through the window.
These recollections make us laugh as we mature and realize that is a perfectly straight forward reason for that shadow or rattling pipe etc. But this day in age it’s no longer the spooky ‘Scooby Doo’ style ghosts and goblins that haunt the dreams of our children. Instead, it’s the reality of state Marshals and Cops breaking into their home in the middle of the night to enforce a foreclosure eviction or a politician signing a bill that will strip them of their rights or the reality that when they get out of college they will immediately have a multi trillion dollar bill to pay because of today’s liberal welfare and social security misspending by politician snakes that slither around their room at night just waiting for the right time, when their guard is down, to strike.
The nightmare for our children is no longer a figment of an overgrown imagination. It’s all too real. How can we bring that innocence back into the dream space of our youth? For starters, take control of your career, step away from large corporations and get involved with the entrepreneurial small and medium size businesses in strong growth industry such as: alternative energy, technology, global distribution facilitation etc. If you are a business owner, don’t hook up an IV to the arm of your infant and sell your soul to the devil by taking a loan to grow your business. Institutional lenders backed by crooked and unqualified politicians will see to it that your company can not meet the terms and your business expansion loan will go delinquent and the IV will star sucking the life out of your offspring and all the gifts of a profitable company yielding a good college education, comfortable transition from university into a career, help with a down payment on a home and other competitive advantages that you want to provide and that your children deserve will go up in smoke while the fat cat politicians and institutional lenders laugh at you and move on to the next easy prey.
Stop and think before you fill out that bank loan application. Don’t put up your home as collateral for a business loan. Don’t take away from your children what should be theirs. Instead, do what the wealthy do, grow your company by creating opportunity for others to make money off of your business concept and track record. Even if you’re a small business making $2M per year, you can take your company public on the OTCBB. The OTCBB (Over The Counter Bulletin Board) is the spring board toward the possibility of a NASDAQ qualification but not necessarily a mandatory move to grow your company. The OTCBB is a trusted, solid exchange with respectable and consistent trading volume where you have access to all the growth capabilities of the industry big boys. You can cross collateralize your securities so you don’t have to personally sign for loans, you can purchase companies to grow quickly using your stock as currency. Bring on prize executives to help you grow your company by offering them stock in the company as they reach certain benchmark goals.
Step away from government lies that will damage the future of your children and banking contracts that will almost surely crucify your company as it’s slowly sucked into Hades like a diamond sinking into a bubbling tar pit. Take your company public and take advantage of the massive success that you truly deserve.
Taking Your Company Public? Get The Facts At the Top Financial Blog , call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183 or Call Us To Take Your Company Public the easy way!
The US is a game preserve and the entrepreneur is the endangered species being hunted by political poachers. Don’t expect a solution by government bureaucrats that use band aids intended to provide a temporary and sub-modest patch up, only problem is this band aid is suppose to close up a bazooka shot to the chest so don’t wait on resolutions that will have a lasting effect.
So what is the solution? When a company is fighting for survival who can they turn to? Two groups that will only hang string you up and hang you to dry are politicians and institutional banks. Both of these sectors of industry are parasites who will eat you from the inside out and then transform into maggots to feast on your rotting flesh.
Strange wording for a financial paper but this is reality. So again, who can you turn to for guidance? That answer is both simple and simultaneously complicated as there are multiple sub sectors of finance each with their own good and bad issues. Seek out a consulting firm that offers turnkey solutions with a contact portfolio that could gag a horse.
To raise money and facilitate quality strategies that will get you from point A to point B a consultant must have contacts with accredited investors, investor relations strategists, market makers, securities attorneys who can bang out 10k and 10q’s as well as constructive counsel for mergers and acquisitions to assist in strategic growth. Your consultant also needs to know where to look and uncover powerful strategic partners that can enhance and induce your company’s expansion efforts.
Many companies are using a regulation d solution also known as a private placement memorandum which uses the SEC loopholes of Reg D 504, 505 and 506 for pre public fundraising and bypass the ‘wild west’ factor of the pink sheets and go to a pre NASDAQ trading platform such as the OTCBB. A solid consultant can complete the task but qualifying them should not constitute drilling them on past transactions and other pointless interrogation tactics as this will only push away the good consultants and bring the scumbags in by the truckload as this type of skepticism is something that the fly-by-nights are comfortable with and use to. Instead ask them for a plan on how they anticipate taking your company from the beginning to fund raising stardom.
Their plan should include corporate structuring and strategies, board of directors selection, advisory board selection, acquisitions strategy, SEC auditor, S1 attorney, market maker for your 15c211 and enough investor relations and corporate publicity to force the continental shelf into movement.
Settle for nothing less than strategic and all inclusive consulting solutions when raising capital and going public or you’ll find yourself in the precarious dilemma of having your public offering piecemealed with no one to hold accountable at the end of the day and believe me, that is the last place you want to be because those companies end up being shelf corporations that are so riddled with holes you can’t even sell them off for a reverse merger.
Get the entire plan from your consultant before signing that contract and moving forward.
Taking Your Company Public? Get The Facts At the Top Financial Blog , call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183 or Call Us To Take Your Company Public the easy way!
What happens when politicians perpetually fail the people of a nation? What happens when lying, steeling, cheating and other grotesque displays of a primitive mind become mainstream with those who have been elected to govern our nation?
The answer is simple, natural law kicks in and the Darwinist notion of Survival Of The Fittest becomes the new reality. Don’t think for a second that your children can’t see it and I f you pay attention you’ll notice it with the crowd around the water cooler and even the racquetball clique. People, smile and goof off less and synergize more. The subconscious, primal survival mentality of our fight or flight ancestors is now dictating our moves as we are once again in survival mode.
Here is what I’m seeing in global commerce. Companies and entrepreneurs that would normally go out of business, claim bankruptcy, lick their wounds and go sell insurance for a living are now seeking synergistic relationships with other like-minded professionals.
Today, I was contacted by three different men: one was a performing and non performing note buyer who made great money but wanted to expand and go public, the second call was from real estate investor who owned around 2.5 million dollars in property, had liquidity and money in the bank but was afraid to do anything until he has a strategy for taking his company public and the third gentleman had a construction background in the luxury home industry and made great money but also had around 3 million dollars in commercial real estate holdings.
Each of them said, “my goal is to go public but I would like to team up with other men just like me so that together we can make a huge success of the public company”. Now obviously that was not verbatim but you get the point.
When I got off the phone, I walked down the hallway from my office to the conference rooms, grabbed some coffee and slowly walked back to my office and then…a moment of Zen, it is time to bring out the merger machine! I immediately got on the phone, called all three clients and within 2 hours had all three of them doing back flips in their living rooms. We took the strengths of each of these men and put them together into an entity that will work.
Don’t give up! Whatever you do, you must never give up. Don’t believe for a second that your Senator or Congressmen is going to do or is even capable of doing anything to improve your position. If they were drowning in a lake you would be the first person they grab and use as a flotation device. Open your eyes and take it all in. Are you fit enough to survive?
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Taking Your Company Public? Post Public Investor Relations Can Make Or Break Your Company Going public is an amazing undertaking with the light anticipated at the end of the tunnel is increased market share, financial stability and of course the almighty strategy of growth through acquisition. The problem is for most companies that light at the end of the tunnel isn’t anything even remotely close to the above; instead it’s a train that will crush you under it’s weight as it’s steaming full speed ahead. That train is a personification of the ‘lack’ of solid investor relations strategies in your post public existence.
Investor relations is the process of working with broker dealers, market makers, stock alert services, press release distribution, fielding calls from the media, potential investors and others interested in your company as well as general publicity to get your executive, company name and trading symbol on as many TV screens, radio waves, social media platforms and email boxes as possible.
The above is the traditional comprehension of a ‘newbie’ public CEO. What most new public CEOs lack the understanding of the post public IR concept so they don’t know what questions to ask the IR firm and have no knowledge to compare services so they sign a crap deal, the stock price doesn’t open, then plummets and everyone begins pointing the finger and on and on with the blame game.
Here is a part of investor relations that most companies never consider. A solid IR firm will have a strong network of investors, broker dealers, private equity funds etc. to create liquidation options for pre IPO investors in a way that will not damage the stock price, to the contrary, the share price will typically go up.
You need to have your consultant set up a safeguard so that when people buy and sell your shares it’s done in a way that doesn’t cause panic but induces investor confidence. When you are interviewing Investor Relations firms a few questions to ask is: how to they create the market, what safety nets and precautionary measures do they put in place to protect the integrity of your newly public company stock and how vast is their ‘speed dial’ investor network (investors they have rapport with so that they can offer buy and hold stock positioning which will minimize your risk when seed investors start cashing in their shares).
For Corporate Turnaround Services or Investor Relations and Publicity, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!
What Is the Process Of Taking A Company Public? Here Are The Answers!
Going public can make or break a company. As long as you are prepared it can be the biggest blessing ever bestowed on your company. Understanding the process can help you decide if this is a direction you’d like to take. Here is the process:
First you’ll need corporate structuring to create a business model that is conducive to raising capital and increasing investor confidence so you’ll need to take a long hard look at your ‘C’ level executives and their educational and professional pedigree and track record, your board of directors capabilities and abilities to contribute with capital connections and strategic alliances.
Second you’ll need to write a business plan that take into consideration a strong business model, financial projections that will stand up to the scrutiny of your SEC auditor and investors who have their investments audited by legal counsel and accountants while simultaneously painting a picture of a solid and viable, and yes, recession proof business model.
Third you will need a PPM to break your company up into shares to distribute to seed capital investors and stay within the SEC Regulation D requirements.
Fourth you’re ready to file your S1 and get into the comments stage. Be prepared to answer questions and be patient. The SE needs to understand your business enough to approve it. Some of their comments are pretty strange but it is what it is. Your best bet is to have a good securities attorney file for you.
Fifth you need your third party audit. This can be a large financial undertaking if your books are a mess and a good auditor can be in and out in around a month.
Sixth after the SEC approval you’ll have your market maker file your 15c211 with FINRA to get your approval and stock symbol.
Lastly, you’ll need a strong post public investor relations strategy to induce investment and calm down those who want to sell their stock. A good IR strategy will also bring into account massive amounts of traditional and viral publicity.
For Corporate Turnaround Services or Investor Relations and Publicity, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!
