Quiet Filing

  

See: Shelf Registration. See: Regulation A.

What a prisoner does to his cell bars late at night when he’s getting ready to escape.

Also, in the financial world, the term refers to a way to prepare for an initial public offering, while still withholding some information about the company.

When a company files for an IPO, it has to submit certain documents to the SEC. These include information about the company and about the projected offering. In a quiet filing, the company doesn't fill in all the boxes. It purposely leaves out some information. This strategy only works in the early stages of preparing an IPO. All the info has to come out eventually. But the company can initially leave out a lot of the pertinent information and then disclose the details later via amended filing documents.

It's a way of delaying the release of key facts about the company until the firm is absolutely sure that it wants to go through with the IPO. Like...how you didn't tell your fiance about all the previous times you got engaged until after the wedding.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is Regulation D?0 Views

00:00

finance a la shmoop what is Regulation D well it's another diet regulation drink [Man holding Regulation D can]

00:09

which gets companies selling stocks or bonds out of the small forest they have

00:14

to kill to print all the paperwork required by the SEC in a full rollout [Paper printing]

00:18

public offering Regulation D is sort of the special situation common in these

00:24

letter regulations which in this case simply restricts the company issuing the

00:28

securities to only sell to a qualified private investor set but what is

00:33

qualified well it generally means that those private investors are already [Private investor man appears]

00:38

wealthy net worth the you know in the millions of dollars may have continuing

00:42

income well into the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars per

00:46

year they're educated yes broadly defined and [Man with degree certificate and graduation cap]

00:49

it doesn't just mean they've taken a fourteen dollars from of course and most

00:52

importantly they will have signed a big boy or a big girl letter which states [A big boy/girl letter]

00:56

that if this risky offering goes completely bust well then no tears or

01:01

lawsuits in a reg D filing there is usually an allocation for sales beyond

01:06

the above accredited private investors and some amount of the stock can be sold

01:10

to non-accredited investors and in current reg deal and that number is

01:15

limited to thirty five so why would the SEC allow a highly risky private

01:20

investment be able to be made to a meaningful number of non-accredited

01:24

investors like people who might not be millionaires they might be uneducated [Man emptying jean pockets]

01:28

are you not taking the shmoop course or any others or unsophisticated in the

01:33

wilds of the financial jungle well because in many early-stage startup [Lion attacks woman in jungle]

01:38

companies the founders have a few dozen family members who are all anxious to [Girl biting nails]

01:43

find the next Amazon and even though they are a plumber and a carpenter and a

01:47

cook they have five grand of savings with which they want to buy a lottery

01:51

ticket so the SEC makes accommodation for this investment in reg D and oh by

01:56

the way this is actually what happened when Jeff Bezos founded and started [Jeff Bezos with colleagues]

02:00

Amazon yeah family members bought in in yeah dreams really do come true

Up Next

Finance: What is shelf registration?
3 Views

A shelf registration is a kind of public offering where banks and other institutions can offer new securities in companies without going through an...

Finance: What is Reg T?
3 Views

Reg T, or Regulation T, is a federal regulation that covers the form and manner in which brokers, or brokerages, can extend credit to customers.

Finance: What is Regulation A?
7 Views

Reg A is an exemption for the sale of securities. We wonder if it has any sweet steel drums in the background.

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)