SEC Chairman Paul Atkins: SEC Has Changed Its Stance to Welcome Companies Going Public
SEC Chairman Paul Atkins stated in Yahoo Finance, "We have completely changed the SEC's attitude and welcome companies to go public. We are modernizing by reviewing the rulebook through rulemaking and returning to the fundamental standard of substantive disclosure." He pointed out that the number of publicly listed companies in the U.S. has decreased by about half compared to 30 years ago. The SEC has proposed several measures, including raising the threshold for 'smaller reporting companies' from $700 million to $2 billion in public float to reduce risk disclosures, compensation disclosures, and shorten historical financial data requirements, thereby lowering the costs of going public and maintaining public listings. The regulatory attitude has shifted from compliance burden to facilitating capital formation, which will attract more mid-sized growth companies to the public market. Companies that have long been stuck in the private market and those facing high compliance costs are under pressure, driving a rebalancing of the U.S. IPO ecosystem from 'de-publicization' to 're-publicization.'
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Since taking office, Paul Atkins has consistently promoted the agenda under the slogan 'Make IPOs Great Again,' emphasizing that the number of publicly listed companies has decreased by about 40% over the past 30 years. Companies often delay going public until Series D/E, much later than the Series B/C stage in the 1990s. The core approach is to anchor disclosure obligations strictly on 'substantive' rather than 'decision-useful' or dual substantive standards. In terms of capital and regulatory pathways, the SEC is concentrating rulemaking resources on expanding the scope of smaller reporting companies, simplifying filer status and registration frameworks, motivated by reducing friction costs for small and medium-sized companies to enter and remain in the public market, allowing retail investors to share in growth dividends earlier, while weakening the long-term monopoly of the private market over quality assets. The exemption logic of the JOBS Act for emerging growth companies is further expanded; under Atkins, the SEC is in a phase of shifting from 'enforcement and disclosure expansion' to 'minimum effective dose regulation,' attempting to rebuild the attractiveness of the public market for growth companies. Essentially, this is a regulatory change: when excess private capital and disclosure burdens lead to a shrinkage in the number of listed companies, regulation reallocates the balance between 'compliance costs and capital formation facilitation' by returning to substantive standards, shifting pricing power from regulatory overlays to market accessibility. ABAB News · Cognitive Laws 1. Attitude changes behavior more than rules 2. The more disclosure deviates from substance, the more the market escapes 3. The public market ultimately lives within the minimum effective dose.