Thanks in part to the federal Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, which was signed into law a year ago this month, the U.S. market for initial public offerings may be poised for a banner 2013 after holding steady in 2012. And if a surge in new filings does come, capital markets lawyers at Am Law 100 and Second Hundred firms are among those set to reap the benefits.
As The Am Law Daily reported earlier this year, one purpose of the JOBS Act was to encourage share sales by companies with less than $1 billion in annual revenue by making it quicker and easier for them to enter the public markets. To that end, the legislation provisions that, among, other things, allow these so-called emerging growth companies to file for confidential IPOs that require auditors to sign off on two, rather than three, years of financial information.
