The Securities and Exchange Commission checked another item of its JOBS Act to-do list Wednesday by issuing a proposed rule to modernize the little-used Regulation A registration exemption.
Regulation A was intended to provide a simple and inexpensive way for small businesses to raise limited amounts of capital, but Congress pushed a rethinking of the exemption because so few issuers use it. Only one qualified Regulation A offering occurred in 2011. In 2012, eight Regulation A offerings raised less than $35 million, compared to 7,7000 issuers who raised nearly $7 billion using more popular Regulation D exemptions.
