ASA Submits Capital Formation Proposals to House Financial Services

WASHINGTON – The American Securities Association (ASA) today outlined several policy recommendations to boost small business capital formation in response to the House Financial Services Committee’s request for proposals.

“ASA applauds Chairman Hill for his leadership at the outset of his Chairmanship to prioritize small business capital formation and advance an agenda to restore our nation’s prosperity,” said ASA President and CEO Chris Iacovella. “Congress, on a bipartisan basis, should seize on this moment and adopt lasting changes that will help both private and public businesses raise capital to create more opportunities for America’s savers, investors, and working families.”

In the letter, ASA urged the Committee to use a 2017 Treasury Department report on improving the U.S. capital markets as a basis for any of the reforms it is considering, including but not limited to:

·    Tailor regulations for emerging growth companies and small public companies;

·    Improve research coverage for pre-IPO and small public companies;

·    Improve secondary market trading for EGCs and small reporting companies by allowing for intelligent tick-sizes;

·    Ending MIFID II’s negative impact on research coverage of U.S. public companies;

·    Terminate the Global Research Settlement which has decreased research coverage and created an unequal playing field for over twenty years;

·    Prioritize research rules reforms including differentiated distribution timing, clarifying the definition of a research report, reassess restrictions on owning covered names in managed accounts, and transition from quarterly Reg AC attestations to annual attestations to reduce administrative burdens on analysts; and

·    Protect shareholders against the burdensome costs of political activism.

To read ASA’s full letter to the Committee, including its further detailed policy recommendations, click here. 

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The American Securities Association (ASA) represents the retail and institutional capital markets interests of regional financial services firms who provide Main Street businesses with access to capital and advise hardworking Americans how to create and preserve wealth. ASA’s mission is to promote trust and confidence among investors, facilitate capital formation, and support efficient and competitively balanced capital markets. This mission advances financial independence, stimulates job creation, and increases prosperity. The ASA has a geographically diverse membership of almost one hundred members that spans the Heartland, Southwest, Southeast, Atlantic, and Pacific Northwest regions of the United States.