If the timing of the IPO Facebook is still not known, investors are in turmoil. And gendarmes stock alert. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the authority of U.S. financial markets, has struck a major blow this week by denouncing irregularities in the market called "pre-IPO" or pre-IPO. She has filed suit Wednesday against SharesPost, a leading specialized platforms in exchange for shares of unlisted companies, like Facebook or Twitter. His main mistake "of having effected transactions in securities without being registered in advance with the regulators as a brokerage." Clearly, the operations were carried out in a strictly regulated market.
Finally, the SEC and the founder of SharesPost, Greg Brogger, reached an agreement. The company must pay a fine of $ 80,000, and its founder will pay $ 20,000 bonus. In addition, SharesPost acquired a brokerage, which allowed him to register with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), another regulatory body. The SEC announced parallel lawsuits against two managers of private funds – Felix Investments and Free Facie Management Associates – "created solely to acquire shares of Facebook and other Silicon Valley companies, deceiving investors and pocketing commissions unspecified ". The managers of these two companies have sold securities to Facebook prices up to 66 dollars per share, nearly twice the rate at which they had got hold of it, denounces the regulator.
Gamble "even for sophisticated investors"
"While we applaud innovation in financial markets, new platforms and new products must obey the laws and ensuring fairness and transparency are the basic mark of a good financial regulation", argued a officials of the SEC, Robert Khuzami, said in a statement totally free credit score. This is a very sensitive issue because Facebook is trading on a gray market with a valuation of nearly $ 98 billion! However, in the first approach, the experts were hoping for a stock of Figaro valuation of approximately $ 75 billion. Finally, it should rather be on the order of $ 100 billion, they say.
The issue of pre-IPO market is considerable, at a time when the SEC ensures restore investor confidence. "When you do not trust your neighbors are happy to see that there are police on the streets," said Max Wolff, in charge of research on the secondary market at GreenCrest Capital in New York, in the columns World. SharesPost and SecondMarket platforms are best known on the secondary market. A market that has allowed tens of thousands of wealthy investors to take their share of companies very popular, as were also Zynga or Groupon before their IPO. Caution, however, not to lose feathers, warns Marc Fagel, director of the SEC office in San Francisco, said in the statement: "This secondary market (…) is dangerous even for sophisticated investors."
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