Trump Administration Wants an Easier Path for Firms to Go Public
- Treasury calls for bar for IPOs to be lowered in report
- Listed public companies in U.S. down 50 percent over 20 years
Rob Roy, founder and chief executive officer of Switch Inc., center left, rings a ceremonial bell during the company's initial public offering (IPO) on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., on Friday, Oct. 6, 2017. Switch jumped by almost half in its trading debut after raising $531 million in an initial public offering, the third-biggest technology IPO this year in the U.S..
Photographer: Michael Nagle/BloombergThe Trump Administration is seeking to relax the rules for companies to go public, echoing calls from the exchange industry that the regulations are too burdensome.
In a report released Friday, the Treasury Department recommended changes for financial markets regulators to consider, calling for an easier pathway to initial public offerings, with an emphasis on encouraging small companies. Although this was the focus of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012, the report said that regulators could go further to prop up IPOs, as the number of domestic public companies listed in the U.S. has declined by almost 50 percent in the past 20 years.