Filed under Blogging by James Scott on April 30, 2010 at 3:36 am
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Are you a business owner raising capital with a Regulation D Rule exemption (504, 505 or 506) also referred to as a Private Placement Memorandum, PPM or Offering Memorandum? If you are using this mechanism to raise capital then you’ll, no doubt, have to have a solid comprehension of the most distinct and important part of the Private Placement Memorandum referred to as the ‘Offering Circular’.
When your consultant or attorney is asking you for details on everything from business location to management, from dividends to risk details, you need to make sure that this information is complete and accurate. You’ll need to audit the documents after they are completed. A solid Offering Circular has kept countless companies from being sued by investors that didn’t get the investment return they were anticipating.
While the business plan is meant to grab the initial attention of the investor or funding source, the Offering Memorandum is meant to spell out the down and dirty details of the venture so that you are protected from lawsuits down the road, while simultaneously exposing the various ins and outs of your venture to give a ‘reality check’ to the investor before they hand over the cash.
The offering circular needs to be powerful yet very compact without the redundancies of using space to say the same things over and over again to pull the investors attention from the negative to the potential profit margins or management’s impressive pedigree. With all this said, yes it’s true the offering circular is one of the parts of a PPM spells out the technical aspects of the enterprise with a focus on inherent risk of investing but this can be done in a balanced way to also demonstrate the positive aspects of your venture by giving solid descriptions of your management team and, in place, distribution centers and contracts in place ready for capitalization.
When authoring the offering circular demonstrate the risks with a well balanced demonstration of the system in place to overcome these risks and dominate your market niche.
Go Public With Your Company, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!
Filed under Blogging by James Scott on April 23, 2010 at 3:25 am
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So is business a form of warfare? If it is who are the pawns and who are the kings? Let’s look at the facts and past the 1980s clichs that chant: Greed Is Good and Business Is War as those chanting these phrases are often on the sidelines and not gifted enough to be on the field and playing and have no choice but to live vicariously through those they are jealously watching.
Everyone wants to be a player but in this industry you need a lot more than drive you need connections and capability. By connections I mean global political, global corporate, international finance and more. By capability I mean nerves of steel, the ability to bath in acid and swim with sharks and eat class for breakfast. This is one of the most stressful industries I know of with a burnout rate that is off the charts and any other global consultant that I know has struggled with their demons to stay on the top of their game. Business, by all categorical definition is War.
There are winners, losers, economies rise and economies crumble all because of global commerce. Global commerce as you know is control over the masses by an elite few. The elite are not the government officials as they themselves are pawns in a much larger game that even they don’t understand. Commerce and finance are numbers on a computer screen and fractional reserve lending, the IMF and other organizations at the end of marionette strings to impose the will of the elite on the global populace.
War in the form of economics is ongoing whereas war with guns and the military is to make a statement. Economic warfare is trade sanctions and limiting technology that will enable a developing nation to grow which will disable their industrial capabilities so that instead of a thriving economy they are dependent on the involvement by industrialized nations. With the Bretton Woods Convention in 1944 and the reconstruction of Europe and the doing away with the gold standard the above mentioned Numbers On A Screen are dictated by who holds the most economic collateral to enforce their idea of numbers.
This group of elites has the economic and military power to impose its will and enforce the idea that the numbers that they place on that screen are etched in stone and if those numbers demonstrate a Loan to a developing nation, though no actual empirical capital has been transferred, that developing nation now becomes a willing pawn in the overall game of economic warfare. So there you have it, business is indeed a form of warfare. This industry of global finance serves as the royal court while those around us are forced to play by the rules we invent and enforce.
I’m not saying that this is a good thing, I’m not exactly proud to be part of the problem but this is the awkward reality. I know you’re waiting for a happy ending or an idea that will help create a solution but I don’t have one.
When my firm is brought in as a strategist and alliance facilitator for global rollups, acquisitions, mergers and IPOs we try to create as many jobs as possible but let me ask you, by creating more jobs are we just perpetuating the problem of the masses being controlled by the few?
Want To Grow Your Company? Take Your Company Public, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183We Can Make Your Global
Filed under Blogging by James Scott on April 18, 2010 at 3:12 am
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Everyone has heard about a friend of a friend who knew a guy that had a sister who got involved with a company just before they went public, made a small seed investment and when the company went public she made millions.
Real Pre – Public investments in companies that are built to last with solid executive management and board of directors all wrapped in a industry that can still flourish in a recession are extremely difficult to find and impossible to be part of unless you are ‘in the know’, meaning you are the auditing or contract attorney for the company filing with the SEC, the accounting firm doing the third party audit, the consulting firm who is putting together the corporate strategies for the company or the investor relations industry that is gearing up for the publicity and promotions campaign to run in a post offering environment.
Typically the invitation to invest in a pre-public company comes in the form of a Direct Public Offering after the company is divided into shares with a private placement memorandum and before the third party audit and before and during the comments stage of the S1 filing. If you are fortunate enough to invest in a company with the above description you will most likely being offered deeply discounted stock (cheaper than what will be offered in the public market) which means you will (if the offering goes as planned) increase your initial investment amount by 200+ percent.
This is not at all a rare instance. Getting invited to invest in the pre-public, seed capital stage is actually quite simple if you know who to talk to. The best companies to become aligned with are ‘go public’ facilitation consultants and corporate turnaround consultants. These groups take companies public for a living and can usually plug you right in when the company is qualifying with the SEC and needs to have 40 investors on the book to qualify to go public (on the OTCBB). Simply contact the company and they will typically give you a quick information form to fill out to collect your name, phone, investment history and investment threshold.
It’s a fact, once you started investing in solid pre-IPO stock investments, you will dump your broker and never buy stock the traditional way again. Now get out there and experience the power of seed capital investment!
For Corporate Turnaround Services or Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!
Filed under Blogging by James Scott on April 10, 2010 at 3:31 am
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Entrepreneurs are being turned onto Regulation D in droves. Regulation D Rule 504, 505 and 506 allow companies a more lenient fund raising process than those who choose to go public by other means. In the past year I’ve seen more PPM consultants pop up on the internet than ever before and I have to admit I’m concerned. As a veteran in this field I’ve seen it all, now we have a legion of self proclaimed Reg. D gurus who buy templates, add some text and tell their clients that they are delivering a customized offering memorandum; here’s where things go bad and a difficult situation gets even worse. You have this worthless document, now what?
You need to gain the confidence and capital of accredited investors without soliciting as dictated in Regulation D Rule 502c. Now you have a worthless document that you can’t solicit investment capital for (which your guru consultant never told you but took your cash anyway) so how are you suppose to raise funds for your company? First, you’ll find that you’ll eventually need to make your way to an actual PPM author, not a broker so that you can get a PPM that protects you from lawsuits and gives the investor a real breakdown of the upside and downside of your business.
Next you’ll need to find a “Investor Finder”, yes this is an actual term for an individual or corporate entity that is completely submerged in the accredited investor realm and is able to match your opportunity with friends that he/she has in their database of real, accredited investors. This is the second half of the PPM equation.
Don’t kid yourself and don’t allow yourself to be lied to; you’re going to need a seasoned professional to help introduce you to investors that have the capital to help you get to where you need to be. Friends, family and employees will commit to investing in your company until your PPM is completed and it’s time to make good on their commitment; all of a sudden little Johnny needs braces and Sally is in the hospital with pneumonia, this happens all the time. Now what? With a real Private Placement Memorandum and a solid Investor Finder you’re problems are basically over. Investigate where the author and I.F. stand in the Internet public domain and after you find a company that meets your needs, get moving and start raising capital.
The internet tells all when it comes to reputations, you’ll be able to tell the difference between a seasoned veteran and a startup consultant after on Google Search and a phone call. A PPM can make raising capital quick and easy if you have the right firm in your corner.
Private Placement Memorandum, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!
Filed under Blogging by James Scott on April 10, 2010 at 3:29 am
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Private Placement Memorandum authoring and the process of taking one’s company public are services that require extensive experience and the ability to look at a deal objectively and peripherally to evaluate all the angles to enhance the ability of the client to achieve funding in a timely manner.
Many times, when I’m hired to structure a company before funding, they will be under the impression that my evaluation is a mere formality and they are ready to go. Often I’m the bearer of bad news when I have to break it to the client that their company has more holes than Swiss cheese and 30 to 60 days away from starting the fund raising process.
They will often get a second and then third opinion and usually run into the same thing before they eventually find their way back to our firm. As they call around to consulting firms they perpetually experience the ‘hard sell’ by firms who ‘need’ the business because they lack the rewards and referrals that come with cultivating each client relationship because they take on and spit out deals so fast they hardly remember their client’s name during the transaction.
This mentality dominates the larger firms because of their gargantuan overhead while the boutique firms can take a more personal approach because they have a steady flow of business and referrals because they are not stressed about bringing in the next big deal so they can meet payroll and keep their lights on. The smaller companies that focus on turnaround consulting, private placement memorandum authoring, top tier business plan writing and taking companies public usually take a one on one approach to the consulting process and will rarely pressure clients to sign on because their phone is ringing off the hook with previous clients who want to hire them for the next stage in the evolution of their company’s growth.
This business is all about relationships. Ditch the consultant that applies the high pressure sales tactics and seek out the smaller, more personalized groups that don’t ‘need’ your business but will cultivate and value it.
Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!
Filed under Blogging by James Scott on April 5, 2010 at 3:32 am
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With global economics the way they are it would be redundant to rant and rave about the downsides of corporate fund-raising. Quick infusions of cash from venture capital firms and institutional lenders are on hold and it is what it is but companies are becoming creative and corporate attention is steering away from the problems and toward the solutions.
The US and Chinese markets are intertwined in many ways and now a new trend in finance is making the relationship even closer. It’s a fact that Chinese corporations are still trying to figure out how to make their domestic stock market profitable and stable. Many of these companies have global ambitions with unique technology solutions business products and strategies but because of the week Chinese economy (compared to the power of other currencies) they have no choice but to head to the Frankfurt Exchange or the OTCBB market here in the United States.
As a corporate consultant that facilitates the process of going public for both domestic and global entities I have received maybe 5 to 10 calls per year from Chinese companies wanting to set up American corporate subsidiaries to absorb their foreign corporations and trade on the Bulletin Boards but all that has changed. I now receive 5 to 10 calls from Chinese and Indian companies per week to take advantage of the global market place that centers around America’s gravitational pull.
Here is how you can take your foreign entity public: set up a domestic corporation (I usually have corporations set up in Delaware because its fast, easy and the states statutes go back to the original 13 colonies so there is sufficient case law and precedence to protect a public entity affectively). Next you will need a professionally written business plan in English. Translated business plans don’t work as Western investors look for different details in transactions than their Asian counterparts. Write a new business plan based off of this new corporate entity.
After this you will use the Regulation D Rule 504 exemption to offer discounted stock to a core group of investors via DPO (direct public offering) we have spent 11 years putting our core group of investors together that can finance around 80% of the public process so it becomes extremely reasonably priced for foreign companies. Then the S1 is put together while simultaneously their SEC audit begins which is simple and fast because the company in the US is a startup. We go through and get the SEC approval, then FINRA and then the market maker that we have attached to the deal goes to work.
Now here is the kicker. If you have any experience with taking companies public you’ll see one common thread throughout all the companies that you work with and that is the fact that the company executives who started this company and are more than likely the majority share holders, want to retain as much equity as possible so this is simple. When the company is publicly trading, limit the issuance of stock specifically to your original core group and let the stock price stabilize then you simply take some of the company owned shares and use them as collateral for equity loans and lines of credit.
Once you’re public the last thing you want to do is liquidate shares to raise capital quickly. Instead, use your shares as collateralized bartering chips and you’ll never have a problem with cash flow or fund raising or the threat of losing control of your company. Foreign companies that want to go public in the United States are often intimidated by the strenuous process and the concern of ‘who to trust’. Find a consulting firm with experience in turnkey ‘go public’ facilitation and you’ll be fine.
Indian and Chinese Companies, Take Your Company Public, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!
Filed under Blogging by James Scott on April 5, 2010 at 3:15 am
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Easily Find And Secure: Angel Investors, Private Investors, Institutional Investors And More! Raising capital for a start-up, corporation in expansion mode or a company in virtually any position presents it’s challenges and roadblocks. There has been no period in recent history that can simulate the difficulties that current entrepreneurs and executives are having when trying to achieve the procurement of venture capital. The standards have become more stringent and the cross-collateralization of personal and corporate assets as security for loans has virtually become a mandatory prerequisite for any type of funding, equity or loan based.
When initiating the process of raising capital one should take into consideration the use of a combination of funding options such as but not limited to: traditional venture capital, bank institutional, institutional equity investment, hedge fund lenders, private money lending, angel equity and loan investment, a private placement memorandum as the mechanism for raising capital distributed in shares, international equity based funding, the reality of taking your small business public on the OTCBB and many other concepts of capital raising that can be placed into a simultaneous strategy.
It’s a common mistake among entrepreneurs and executives to place all of their attention and time into one singular aspect of the above funding concepts. Instead, you should pick a multi pronged approach and go after multiple genres of financing for your business. Some avenues will yield success, some will not but you are more likely to achieve incremental funding successes as oppose to one gargantuan, be all and end all finance victory.
To achieve funding you’ll need to be able to contact multiple finance sources to start the ball rolling. Find online membership database sites that are owned and operated by professionals in the venture capital industry.
There is a big difference between a generalized database of possible lenders and a strategic database of success driven finance solutions. Find the most cutting edge, full range database on the web and join them.
Do You Need Financing For Your Business? Do You Need Angel Investors, Private Investors or Venture Capital, then visit Angel Funding Project’s site and find the best Business Funding Sources In The Industry.
Filed under Blogging by James Scott on March 29, 2010 at 3:14 am
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So many companies dream of going public to raise massive amounts of capital, as set up for an exit strategy, to make acquisitions with stock and for many other reasons. While your intentions may be pure and with genuine motives, you’re entering shark infested waters of boiler rooms, crooked attorneys and underbelly consultants who have made careers off of taking well intentioned executives just like you for a 24 month rollercoaster ride while they take every penny you have as your company shrivels up like week old road kill.
Just and honest consultants in the ‘public offering’ industry are as rare as the illusive white elephant. This industry exists in a cesspool surrounded by rose gardens; from afar it looks amazing and an image of a dreamland but get up and close and the sludge and odor are enough to make you run and hide. So what do you look for in a consultant? The best consulting firms are the ’boutique firms’ with minimal overhead that keep a low profile and are made up of 3 or 4 ‘partner’ consultants.
These firms typically have the experience of working with the large consulting groups but for one reason or another have decided to leave and go out on their own. The great thing is, these small groups typically have massive contacts and process your entire public offering in-house. Offering a complete turn-key solution that is managed in-house offers a huge advantage because there is accountability and you can actually build a relationship with the people that are making your dream of a public offering come true.
These ’boutique’ consultants will usually stay onboard as growth consultants for the life of the company in exchange for modest fees and a pre-IPO or pre-OTCBB equity position. The large firms will hack you out at the knees and gouge you with fees while they take massive amounts of equity in your company which takes away your bartering chip when you need to offer more stock to the public to raise capital.
The small firms will also work one on one with you to show you how to use your stock to grow through acquisition and other nifty ways to use stock to grow. Seek out the boutique consulting firm and save the attorney for spot audits. Hold on to your cash. Why pay outrageous fees to lawyers when you can pay 60% less with a small consulting firm that will add all the bells and whistles for free and actually get your stock trading, usually in half the time?
Take Your Company Public, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!
Filed under Blogging by James Scott on March 19, 2010 at 3:19 am
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There are many ways to use capital without using bank loans, lines of credit and other shady methods like shelf corps and bogus platform scams. If you are truly trying to raise capital for your company here are some simple breakdowns of your options with a quick definition for each one:
PIPE: Private Investment In Public Equity this is used primarily by mutual funds and private investment firms where they buy discount stock in order to raise capital, there are two types of PIPEs traditional where common and preferred stock is issued at a set cap to raise money for the issuer and a structured pipe issues convertible debt.
DPO: Direct Public Offering is when you sell equity shares directly to customers, suppliers and employees.
PPM: Private Placement Memorandum is also known as an offering memorandum takes advantage of Regulation D rule exemptions 504, 505 and 506. This process came into existence with the’33 securities act and popularized in the late’80s, companies can raise money from the public via private placement; there is virtually zero interaction with the SEC after you file form d as long as you stay legal. (most popular form of fund raising).
IPO: Initial Public Offering: extremely expensive, need SOX 404 audits, must have board of directors, quarterly financial reports to shareholders, report heavily to the SEC and 1 out of every 1000 companies that want an IPO actually qualify. I love participating in these but most companies just can’t qualify for one reason or the other.
OTCBB: Over the Counter Bulletin Board is an electronic quote system that is the next best thing if you can’t go public via ipo, there is minimal red tape to startups and small businesses and is legitimized by the stringent ongoing reports to the SEC which keeps investor confidence high (these are extremely solid and I suggest this structure to companies when I am hired by their company or legal team as a consultant as a fast, easy way to raise big capital from the public otc)
Pink Sheet: you can look at pink sheets as the Burger King, while the OTCBB is McDonalds, they are competing otc mechanisms. Pinks sheets are commonly referred to as penny stock and notorious for ‘pump em’ and dump em’ controversies and a lot of crooked people are involved with this platform. This is not a long term process that will allow one’s company to grow, pink sheets companies are typically short lived but it is cheap to set up but not a professional structure that could be upgraded in time to an IPO.
Reverse Merger: a group funds the filing and creation of a public shell, they then sell that shell to a company that wants to go public, the established company merges it’s entity into the public shell. The sellers retain around 30% equity after they charge an upfront fee of 300k to 1m. 99% of reverse mergers are successful with the merger, but unsuccessful to bring them to trade and the entity basically just fizzles out.
Taking your company public is actually quite simple and inexpensive when you have the right consultant putting the structure together for you. There are countless ways to raise capital quickly and easily. It’s important that you understand your options before you waste time entering into the red tape infested banking system for a loan.
Want To Go Public With Your Company, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!
Filed under Blogging by James Scott on March 19, 2010 at 3:13 am
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So many companies dream of going public both as a growth and exit strategy but unfortunately few succeed with this process. The third party audit, sponsoring of the S1 and 211 by a market maker and SEC comments stage is just one of the obstacles involved with taking a company public. The attempt at going public and actually achieving a symbol are two entirely different things and if you are lucky enough to achieve a symbol there’s a completely separate area of expertise needed to keep your stock trading and to preserve a company’s longevity in the marketplace.
Here are some things you need to keep in mind when gearing up to take your company public. Forget everything that you’ve read and heard and pay attention to what you’re about to read because this is the straight forward, objective reality of the process. First, do not hire an attorney to take you public as they will take you on a long drawn out process to get as many billable hours as possible, instead, hire a consulting firm whose sole business model is to take companies public and take advantage of the relationships that they have with attorneys. This is the first rule: hire a consulting firm that offers a complete A to Z turn-key solution for taking a company through the process of going public, achieving a symbol and preserving the trade with a solid, ongoing post public investor relations strategy.
Next, when you’ve decided on a consulting firm evaluate their team, don’t ask for references to call to research their track record, better yet, ask for symbols of previous clients and links to the Edgar database to check out current deals in the comments stage. The proof is in the empirical track record, not potentially fraudulent phone references that are easily engineered and BS.
Now look at their team. Make sure that the consulting group has a solid legal team, market makers, investor relations team, auditing group and someone well versed in the comments stage response as this can be one of the major hang-ups in achieving your symbol in a timely manner. Also, most important, they absolutely MUST have a solid group of investors to fund the process for equity and to sell their shares into the marketplace post public to create a market for your stock as well as a network of market makers familiar with your deal to piggyback off of the sponsoring market maker’s 211.
About one month away from symbol achievement you’ll want to meet with your consultants to get a solid IR strategy together for a big offering dbut. You will want to set up a strategy for 30 day IR intensives every other month with general corporate publicity strategies in between. I suggest changing your IR firm each quarter to keep it fresh and open up your trade to a new network of investors.
One special note to consider is that when you are raising your initial round of capital from seed investors, the fastest way to do this is to have a fist full of contracts and purchase orders in hand to strengthen your position and publicize this reality with an arsenal of press releases. Its 100 times easier to raise capital if you are showing seed investors a handful of ’soon to be’ cash than to solicit them empty handed.
Obviously there are a multitude of other issues that you need to take into consideration when going public so find a consulting firm that can help you make it happen. Don’t try to venture out into these waters on your own as you’ll be diving into shark infested waters and you’ll almost certainly fail.
For Corporate Consulting or Invest Seed Capital In Pre-IPO Companies, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!