Competition lines up against Goldman

Posted Jul 23rd 2007 12:04AM by Kevin Kelly
Filed under: SEC Filings, Products and Services, Launches, Competitive Strategy

As I recently covered on BloggingBuyouts, the private equity firm Apollo Management hopes to go public only to institutional investors and "smart money" on a different type of exchange, Goldman Sachs's GSTrUE private trading system and a JPMorgan Chase platform. In doing so, the firm plans to bypass the extensive filing process that is required when a firm wants to become a public company on one of the main exchanges in the United States.

It turns out Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) and JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM) are essentially the only companies with these exchanges. However, according to a Financial Times article, many investment banks such as Citigroup (NYSE: C) and Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) plan to create their own exchanges of this type by September.

The FT article notes that this way of going public, also known as a 144A issue, is very popular with alternative investment managers because it allows them to raise permanent capital without filing to the extent necessary to file for an IPO. 144A issues can also be the first step used when a company plans to become fully public in time, such as the situation in Apollo.

Tags: 144A Issuer, 144aIssuer, Apollo, C, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, GoldmanSachs, GS, MER, Merrill Lynch, MerrillLynch