In monitoring SEC comment letters, we came across this SEC comment letter made public this month. It serves as a reminder to registrants that, when calculating a company’s public float, there is an informal presumption that a 10% or greater stockholder is an affiliate of the company; however, this presumption is rebuttable by the registrant.
The letter stated that “[t]he Staff has consistently taken the position that the determination of ‘control’ status is dependent in large part on the facts and circumstances involved and, therefore, has declined to state definitively what circumstances will result in a person being deemed to be in ‘control’ of an issuer. While the Company recognizes that, as a rule of thumb, more than 10% ownership has become an informal benchmark at which control should be evaluated, such ownership, standing alone, is not dispositive.”
Continue Reading SEC Comment about “Affiliate” Stockholder in Public Float Calculation
In a Bloomberg BNA article, I provided insight on what future additional updates the SEC Staff could be focusing on following the Commission’s announcement of proposed amendments to Regulation S-K last week. The article quotes Elizabeth Murphy, an associate director in the SEC Division of Corporation Finance, from an October 18 Association of Corporate Counsel conference discussion saying the SEC has “more to come from our Reg S-K disclosure initiative,” but did not specify any particular recommendations to Regulation S-K the Commission plans to focus on. I noted that the Staff might continue to focus on MD&A disclosures and Regulation S-K’s Item 101, the narrative description of the business. In those areas, many comments on the concept release urged the SEC to “move from prescriptive rules to a more principles-based approach,” I explained in the article. “Given how fundamental these S-K sections are to SEC filings generally, it seems reasonable to believe the SEC Staff would develop recommendations to these rules for Commission consideration.”
