Small investors can participate in IPO where regulation allows it (so vote for that). Here in Hong Kong, every grandma rushes to the bank at every IPO to stuff

Small investors can participate in IPO where regulation allows it (so vote for that). Here in Hong Kong, every grandma rushes to the bank at every IPO to stuff her pocket with pre-allocated retail blocks of 1 to 10k USD. Do you want your grandma to do this ? You can vote for it, but be ready for what it means. For me what it means is that the "poor little small investor" is a fallacy, most small investors are retired landlords/rent earners, not struggling productive young people and giving more leeway to retail investor just make old people either consolidate more or risk more when they rely on high cost of survival. Fine, but be ready to see none of the young people invest in IPO because they earn a salary or don't have a capital large enough, and a LOT of the whiny old fucks lose all their savings and vote pro-China to spite you :D SPAC are a travesty imho, we do it often in Hong Kong too, because why not be creative if it can also give you the pleasure of bypassing regulation, hiding that your Chinese forestry company never saw a forest or whatever, but frankly I don't see any social or financial value. You ask for public money, you give public information, it was the first commandment of capitalism... As for the banks' commission, it's well deserved and usually a function of the volume they bring via marketing. I suppose you could bypass the banks in an IPO by building a small department in your company doing just that, but good luck calling people you made rich 10 times over to sell them the next unicorn. People will just scoff at you selling your own crap. It's like being a restaurant with a 10x increase in orders from foodpanda whining about their awful commission rate. Fine, do it and see or figure a way to make margins with it anyway.