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Jan31
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With final implementation of Sarbanes Oxley scheduled to occur this year, many small public companies should be thinking seriously about how to get private. For some, simply "going dark" is the right strategy. For those with too many shareholders to go dark, a traditional going private transaction is required. In virtually every transaction to go private, there is a risk of a lawsuit from shareholders who don't like the outcome. There are several keys that management must apply when executing the strategy both to fundamentally assure that shareholders get treated fairly and to reduce the risk of a lawsuit.  By seeking third-party help from legal and financial advisors, a company can fairly determine and establish a fair price for a transaction. The process includes more hurdles than I can cover here, but includes a third party valuation and fairness opinion.
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Jan30
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A few months back I posted about Jim Cramer. I thought it was a bit interesting that no one came to his defense when I suggested that he was not a credible financial advisor.Today, Henry Blodget takes on Cramer in...
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Jan29
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An article in the New York Times about a new ad campaign quite literally caught my attention today.The ad, below, which is part of the rebranding effort of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. The Foundation is changing its...
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Jan25
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I'm finally catching up to read the PricewaterhouseCoopers MoneyTree Report for the last quarter of 2006. Some highlights from the report are shown below. 1996 1995 % Change U.S. Full Year # of Deals 3,416 3,094 10.4% U.S. 4th...
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Jan24
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The next Funding Universe Utah SpeedPitching event is coming up next Wednesday. SpeedPitching is to entrepreneurs what SpeedDating is to singles, a great way to meet many potential matches in a short time.Funding Universe is a rapidly growing Utah-based company...
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Brad Jacobsen, a lawyer from Holme Roberts and Owen, wrote this explanation about Going Dark: A client of ours recently learned first hand the significant costs that implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“SOX”) can have on a small, publicly-held...
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Jan23
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For regular readers, you'll recognize that one of my favorite topics is taking companies private in the current market environment.Last Spring our firm, Thorpe Capital Group, did a fairness opinion related to the sale of a public company that had...
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Jan20
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One of the highlights of my week, perhaps the highlight of my crazy week, was having breakfast with Jeff Barson. Jeff is a great guy with a true entrepreneurial vision. We chatted briefly, but I would like to follow up...
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One of the best posts I've read in a long time about entrepreneurship popped up this week on Chris Kundsen's blog.I imagine that almost every person alive has had the thought at least once, that they'd rather start a business...
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Jan17
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Tomorrow at noon at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City is the MountainWest Capital Network Luncheon featuring four CEOs of fast growing companies talking about their challenges with high growth businesses. Click for more information.Tomorrow is the anniversary...
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Jan16
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Arizona State University tracks four key academic finance publications to determine which Universities are publishing the most research. For the last five years, the Cornell University ranked 15th and the University of Utah tied for 19th.Personally, having completed a finance...
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Jan12
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I received a note today from Jeremy Nielson of the Utah Fund of Funds pointing out that in prior years, Utah ranked number one among U.S. states for the number of Inc. 500 companies on a per capita basis. Utahns...
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Jan11
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The MountainWest Capital Network publishes an annual Utah deal flow report each year in March. The data is also hosted on-line. The report covers venture capital, private equity and other investment transactions, along with mergers and acquisitions and public offerings,...
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Jan10
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I was surprised, and frankly pleased, to read that Republican Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed a plan to provide universal health coverage in California. While other Republicans and business leaders are expected to oppose the plan (which calls for a tax...
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Jan 8
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As the new president of the MountainWest Capital Network I want to formally invite all of those interested in Utah's deal community to join us for our monthly luncheon on Thursday, January 18, 2007 at the Little America Hotel.This luncheon...
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Jan 7
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Yesterday was "Cornell Cares Day" around the world. In 23 cities around the globe, Cornellians (that's what we call ourselves) turned out in groups to volunteer.The Utah group headed up to Park City to support the 20th Annual Huntsman Cup...
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Jan 4
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I read an interesting article from the Christian Science Monitor today about the OpenCourseWare Consortium, a multi-national consortium of schools that includes six U.S. universities, including most prominently, M.I.T.The other universities involved from the U.S. are: Johns Hopkins, Tufts, UC...
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Jan 3
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FAS 123R requires that equity compensation for employees, in virtually any form, be recognized on the face of the financial statements in order to comply with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.One of the implications of this is that options need to...
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Jan 2
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Recently I had the opportunity to review a stack of business plans as part of a screening process for a venture capital conference.Each business plan represented a company hoping to present at the conference. The plans varied greatly in quality...
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By seeking third-party help from legal and financial advisors, a company can fairly determine and establish a fair price for a transaction. The process includes more hurdles than I can cover here, but includes a third party valuation and fairness opinion. 
