Political Quotes

“I want to be clear: This bill is about new companies, not existing companies, but about new companies that are wanting to go public. The $1 billion revenue and $700 million in public float thresholds for emerging growth companies in the underlying bill were recommended by the nonpartisan IPO task force comprised of industry experts, such as venture capitalists, public investors, entrepreneurs, investment bankers, accountants, professors, securities attorneys, and the exchanges. If we strike the public float requirements, we break this provision's ties to an already defined SEC threshold. Seven hundred million in public float is the threshold for a company to be considered ``a large accelerated'' filer under SEC rules. This number is used by the SEC to define a mature company, meaning that the company will be able to handle complying with a variety of SEC regulations on day one of its IPO. The $1 billion threshold in the bill serves as a backstop to the SEC's definition of an accelerated filer. In addition, lowering the revenue thresholds would increase IPO costs for more companies and make the IPO path less attractive than merger and acquisition transactions. More mergers and less IPOs would mean less job creation here at home as a result of innovative companies being absorbed by larger purchasers, including non-U.S. companies. Therefore, I appreciate the gentleman's position and understand his wanting to go in this direction, but we cannot support this amendment.…”