How The SPAC Has Been A Welcome Breath Of Fresh Air To Public Markets

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The Decline Of Public Companies

  • The last couple of decades have given rise to “the 8,000 to 4,000 problem”.

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  • It is the trajectory of public companies in the U.S. from the late 1990s/2000 era to roughly 2020, during which the number of public companies declined from over 8,000 to a low near 4,000.
  • There have been many different reasons offered for why this has happened, but we have spoken to enough small, entrepreneurial private companies over the last 15 years to squarely put the blame on government regulations that have made it too cumbersome and expensive to become a public company.
  • From Sarbanes/Oxley to Regulation Fair Disclosure to even the NASDAQ trading settlement of the late 1990s, and more - all these have had a role.

A Positive Outlook

  • This negative landscape has been changing for the better more recently.
  • Entrepreneurs have found their way back through the use of an old, obscure and little understood vehicle known as the special purpose acquisition corporation (SPAC).
  • While the SPAC is not always less expensive than going public through the traditional route, the regulatory burden and requirements that tax a small company trying to go through the traditional initial public offering (IPO) process make the SPAC route extremely attractive for many small companies, particularly in the technology space.

SPAC Investment Opportunities

  • But The SPAC has been a welcome breath of fresh air to public markets sorely needing more publicly-traded, small companies that can be an investment opportunity for everyday people trying to get a return on their hard-earned money before these companies become huge.
  • And, of course, these companies going public through the SPAC process are often the innovative young guns that will challenge the oligarchic mega-companies that have thrived in the preceding period of drought for small companies coming public, allowing those oligarchic titans to dominate all levels of our culture, politics and everyday life in ways that are not always desirable.
  • Look out Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, et al: here comes your competition.

About Gerry Frigon, President & Chief Investment Officer at Taylor Frigon Capital Management (www.taylorfrigon.com)

GERARD J. FRIGON is the President, Chief Investment Officer of Taylor Frigon Capital Management LLC and is the Managing Member of Taylor Frigon Capital Advisors LLC, General Partner to Taylor Frigon Capital Partners LP, a private investment fund which invests in private companies and small emerging public companies. He is the Senior Portfolio Manager for the Taylor Frigon Core Growth Fund, an open-end investment company (TFCGX). He serves on the Board of Directors for ASOCS, Ltd. (a pioneer in virtual Radio Access Networks (vRAN) and a provider of fully virtualized, NFV-compatible virtual Base Station (vBS) solutions, based in Rosh Hayan, Israel), and I-V Access Technology, Inc. (a private medical device company committed to bringing their breakthrough catheter, VENAGLIDE, to the market to transform the venous access experience for patients and clinicians, based in Scottsdale, AZ.)

Mr. Frigon has over three decades of experience in investment strategy, planning and portfolio management for private investors and institutions including over 21 years at Merrill Lynch in the San Francisco Bay Area. During that time, he has managed portfolios with the same disciplined process directly descended from the classic growth philosophy implemented by Thomas Rowe Price and Richard Taylor.

Mr. Frigon received his Bachelor of Arts in Business/Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1985. He founded Taylor Frigon Capital Management LLC in 2006.