Capital Allocation: An Unsung Role of High-Growth Company Boards
Most fast-growing companies, public and private, tend to be cash constrained. This puts a premium on the allocation of capital. Put differently, if you don’t have a lot of cash, you had better be really careful what you do with it. When I was an institutional investor, I was 100% convinced that the misallocation of […]
Pre-IPO Corporate Governance Fireside Chat with Steve Hooper
On May 17, 2017, I spoke about pre-IPO corporate governance at a terrific event in Seattle entitled, “Keys to Success for High Growth Private Companies.” The conversation was fashioned as a “fireside chat” with renowned CEO and venture capitalist Steve Hooper, and was moderated by veteran CFO Liz Huebner. Though the conversation was wide-ranging and […]
Mistakes To Avoid When Purchasing D&O Insurance
Many companies that are small-cap or on the cusp of an initial public offering (IPO) struggle with purchasing director and officer (D&O) insurance. Unlike larger public companies where management, the board, and corporate governance professionals assist in expertly analyzing D&O liability insurance policies, skeletal staffs and less experienced officers and directors can make assessing these […]
Memo to Small-Cap Boards: Don’t Outsource Proxy Statements
By Adam J. Epstein | Nasdaq MarketInsite | May 12, 2017 Considering that 78 percent of activist campaigns were waged in companies with market capitalizations below $2 billion in 2016 (according to Activist Insight), it’s incumbent upon small-cap companies to communicate clearly about issues investors care most about. Notwithstanding the fact that proxy […]
Nasdaq’s Daniel Romito on the Unique Challenges of Small Companies
Nasdaq Corporate Solutions Senior Analyst* Daniel Romito will be the first to tell you why data are among the largest and most strategic assets a company, regardless of size, can have. Clients of Nasdaq’s Strategic Capital Intelligence, which Romito leads, span North America, Europe, and Asia, and include companies with market capitalizations between $50 million […]
Board Members Regularly Misconstrue Legal Advice
“Well, if our corporate counsel’s principal role isn’t to guide the board with respect to best practices, then why are we paying them so much to attend our board meetings?” That’s the question I was recently asked by a flummoxed small-cap chairman, when I advised him and the other board members that just because the […]
Understanding the Advice of Boardroom Lawyers
“If our corporate counsel’s principal role isn’t to guide the board with respect to best practices, then why are we paying him so much to attend our board meetings?” That’s the question I was recently asked by a flummoxed small-cap board chair when I advised him and his fellow board members that just because the […]
When Entrepreneurs Think Boards Are a Waste of Time, We All Lose
The scene unfolds countless times a year: founders, investors, and service providers gather at conferences to discuss salient issues for early stage, high growth companies. Panels and keynotes discuss innovation, growth strategies, team building, marketing, advertising, and fundraising, and the energy in the room is dynamic. Then it’s time for the inevitable panel about corporate […]
How Media Disaffection Hurts Small-Cap Companies
The media principally cover two segments of the capital markets: the S&P 500 and hotly anticipated initial public offerings (IPOs). So, are U.S. public companies either global titans or venture-backed stars? Hardly. There are some 15,000 public companies in the United States, and most of them are small. Look at Nasdaq and the NYSE: almost […]
Media: Stop Ignoring Small Public Companies
Memo to mainstream business media in the United States: there are more than just 500 public companies – a lot more. And ignoring them, or incessantly referring to them as “penny stocks” that are “rife with fraud,” isn’t helping the economy, it isn’t helping small-cap companies, and it isn’t helping investors either. Ignoring them Read […]