4 ms·
They are forced to take some of the economic costs of being public, but the managers have much more flexibility when the company is private. For example, Faceb
by veyron 14y ago
They are forced to take some of the economic costs of being public, but the managers have much more flexibility when the company is private. For example, Facebook's acquisition of Instagram would not fly if FB were public when that happened.
You can argue that the paperwork is onerous, but its paperwork. The headaches involved with public companies go far beyond a few paltry reports.
- pcl 14y ago> ... the managers have much more flexibility when the company is private. For example, Facebook's acquisition of Instagram would not fly if FB were public when that happened. Is that really the case? In other words, what additional restrictions does a publicly-listed company have that privately-traded companies do not have? Your comment seems plausible, but I could imagine that the SEC regulations around > 500 shareholders etc. could also include all the shareholder protections we associate with public companies, as well. Additionally, I wouldn't be surprised if Mark Zuckerberg's controlling interest in FB had some sort of an impact on what regulations apply to the company.
- pwaring 14y agoPresumably there are some advantages to remaining private since there are plenty of large US corporations which choose to do so: http://www.forbes.com/private http://www.forbes.com/private I couldn't find any reliable sources for what the advantages were though.
- mikeryan 14y agoNot at Facebook. Zuck still owns a majority of the voting shares. The board has almost no teeth an couldn't have stopped the Instagram transaction if it wanted too.