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Posts Tagged ‘how to take your company public’

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.

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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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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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So is business a form of warfare? If it is who are the pawns and who are the kings? Let’s look at the facts and past the 1980s clichs that chant: Greed Is Good and Business Is War as those chanting these phrases are often on the sidelines and not gifted enough to be on the field and playing and have no choice but to live vicariously through those they are jealously watching.

Everyone wants to be a player but in this industry you need a lot more than drive you need connections and capability. By connections I mean global political, global corporate, international finance and more. By capability I mean nerves of steel, the ability to bath in acid and swim with sharks and eat class for breakfast. This is one of the most stressful industries I know of with a burnout rate that is off the charts and any other global consultant that I know has struggled with their demons to stay on the top of their game. Business, by all categorical definition is War.

There are winners, losers, economies rise and economies crumble all because of global commerce. Global commerce as you know is control over the masses by an elite few. The elite are not the government officials as they themselves are pawns in a much larger game that even they don’t understand. Commerce and finance are numbers on a computer screen and fractional reserve lending, the IMF and other organizations at the end of marionette strings to impose the will of the elite on the global populace.

War in the form of economics is ongoing whereas war with guns and the military is to make a statement. Economic warfare is trade sanctions and limiting technology that will enable a developing nation to grow which will disable their industrial capabilities so that instead of a thriving economy they are dependent on the involvement by industrialized nations. With the Bretton Woods Convention in 1944 and the reconstruction of Europe and the doing away with the gold standard the above mentioned Numbers On A Screen are dictated by who holds the most economic collateral to enforce their idea of numbers.

This group of elites has the economic and military power to impose its will and enforce the idea that the numbers that they place on that screen are etched in stone and if those numbers demonstrate a Loan to a developing nation, though no actual empirical capital has been transferred, that developing nation now becomes a willing pawn in the overall game of economic warfare. So there you have it, business is indeed a form of warfare. This industry of global finance serves as the royal court while those around us are forced to play by the rules we invent and enforce.

I’m not saying that this is a good thing, I’m not exactly proud to be part of the problem but this is the awkward reality. I know you’re waiting for a happy ending or an idea that will help create a solution but I don’t have one.

When my firm is brought in as a strategist and alliance facilitator for global rollups, acquisitions, mergers and IPOs we try to create as many jobs as possible but let me ask you, by creating more jobs are we just perpetuating the problem of the masses being controlled by the few?

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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.

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