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| PRINTER VERSION |
SEC FILING AND BLUE SKY
| Programs Under Which You Can Get Blue-Skied & Obtain Additional Visibility |
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Before a stock is offered or sold in a state, it must be registered or exempt from registration under that state's securities, or blue sky laws. In 1996 Congress passed NISMIA, in which they took away the States' power to control "covered" securities. These were AMEX, NYSE, PCX (ArcaEx) Tier I and full NASDAQ companies. In addition, PCX Tier II companies were blue skied in a large number of states. However, Small Cap, OTCQB, and Pink Sheet companies were still subject to state jurisdiction. If you are on the OTCQX you are required to be blue-skied and if you are on the OTCQB, NASDAQ, AMEX or NYSE it is still a must-have for any company serious about being public. As it would be an onerous task for a company to try to register in all states, most states accept the S&P and Mergent blue sky programs. This means that once a company pays to join one of these programs, its stock can be sold in most states.
- Standard & Poors through their "Corporation Records", and their "Market Access Program" for OTC Companies.
- Mergent (formerly Moody's)
- North American Securities Administrators Association -- to find addresses for the regulators in the states where S&P or Mergent do not get you exempted.
| Electronic Filing of Your Documents with the SEC. |
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There are a number of companies which, for a fee, will convert documents to EDGAR format and transmit them to the SEC. The main categories of companies doing this are:
- Financial printers. The two major financial printers offer this as do some of the smaller financial printers. The last, remaining big financial printers in the US are:
- RR Donnelley
- Merrill Corp.
- News release distribution services. The major services offer this as do some of the smaller services. The three biggest services in the US are:
- PR Newswire
- BusinessWire
- Marketwire
- Independent filing companies. Two of the biggest are:
- Thomson Reuters Accelus
- Edgar Online
The largest companies, listed above, are often the most expensive. You will find many other companies by doing a Google search. However, you will find that some of the smaller companies subcontract the work to the larger ones. In turn, the larger companies (and some smaller ones) subcontract the work to India. A public company wishing to save money may decide to contract directly with India, also.
A company wishing to do its own EDGAR filing will need the appropriate software with which to convert its financials to the required formats: text-only, HTML and XBRL Plus they will need employees trained in how to do this. For a larger company this is probably a cost-effective solution. A Google search will bring up a number of competing software companies along with training on their products.
