Скачать или смотреть The Under $300 Million Market Cap Class

The Under $300 Million Market Cap Class- Today is the first of a LawCast series talking about the under $300 million class of public companies. Depending on whom you ask, a public company with less than $300 million market cap could be considered a micro-cap company, a penny stock (unless their share price is over $5.00), a lower middle market company or even middle market. Divestopedia defines “lower middle market” as “the lower end of the middle market segment of the economy, as measured in terms of annual revenue of the firms. Firms with an annual revenue in the range of $5 million to $50 million are grouped under the lower middle market category.”

Wikipedia defines “middle market” as “companies larger than small businesses but smaller than big businesses that account for the middle third of the U.S. economy's revenue. Each of these companies earns an annual revenue of between $100 million and $3 billion.” In a speech to the Greater Cleveland Middle Market Forum, SEC Commissioner Robert J. Jackson, Jr. defined a middle market company as those with trailing twelve-month sales of $50 million to $1 billion.

As I’ve written and filmed about previously, Bank of America, and their brokerage, Merrill Lynch, will not transact business in the securities of companies with less than a $300 million market cap and less than a $5.00-per-share stock price. Moreover, even if the stock price is over $5.00, such transactions or requested trades will face increased scrutiny and may not be processed right away. Bank of America clearly thinks that under $300 million is a micro-cap company.

I realize that I am interchanging between market cap and revenue, but that is also common. For example, SEC rules define a smaller reporting company (SRC) as those with less than a $250 million public float or if a company does not have an ascertainable public float or has a public float of less than $700 million, a SRC will be one with less than $100 million in annual revenues during its most recently completed fiscal year. A Google search for definitions of micro-cap, small-cap, lower middle market and middle market resulted in as many variations to the definition, based on both revenues and market cap, as Google pages I took the time to peruse.
Last summer the Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC) Institute published a report titled “Microcap Board Governance” providing some interesting information on public companies with less than $300 million in market capitalization...