Because they can….  This was the conclusion of the discussion at the SEC Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies earlier in the week (see our prior post regarding the meeting).  The Committee discussed statistics relating to the number of companies that are undertaking IPOs, the number of venture-backed companies receiving substantial private investments, trends relating to acquisitions of venture-backed companies (presumably instead of IPOs), and the various factors contributing to this noticeable trend.  The Committee hosted various speakers, including a representative of E&Y.  The E&Y presentation contains interesting market data and may be accessed here:  https://www.sec.gov/info/smallbus/acsec/giovannetti-presentation-acsec-021517.pdf.

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