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Why Are You Writing A Private Placement Memorandum (PPM) To Raise Capital? I feel like I have to put this out there as a corporate strategies consultant with a firm that is completely submerged in the industry of authoring business plans, private placement memorandums (regulation d rule 504, 505 and 506), facilitating direct public offerings to our database of investors and taking companies public on the OTCBB.

When I get calls about private placement memorandums it is typically one of two scenarios: 1. They want to raise capital and they are shopping around for the cheapest PPM author they can find. 2. They have made the mistake of using the cheapest PPM author they could find and now they can’t find an investor that will fund their 70 page stack of toilet paper.

It never ceases to amaze me when companies are trying to convince investors that they are ready for that next step in their corporate evolution, yet they are being penny wise and dollar foolish with the most technical document their company has ever had done. And why do people put the cart before the horse? I mean, why do people write the private placement memo before they know who their audience is? As a rule of thumb you should write for your audience.

A ppm that is being written for venture capital firms will demonstrate and cater to more of an equity control and technical audience whereas a ppm that is being written for angel investors, private investors and small private equity firms who want to be in and out of a transaction will typically want to buy low and sell high and will typically want to invest in companies that are going public in as short of a time as possible.

The investors in pre public companies and other ‘angel’ type investors have a minimal bankroll of $1m or less (usually) so they have to be in and out of a transaction fast, thus the need for a ’selling shareholder offering’. This is a mandatory prerequisite for a company that wants to raise capital from angels and go public. With a selling shareholder offering you are setting up a scenario that ever investor dreams of.

You are giving them the ability to buy deeply discounted stock and 3 or 4 months later, when the company goes public, they can sell their stock into the market at an offering price that is typically 4 or 5 times what they originally purchased the shares at and the company is happy because the investor created a bridge for the company to go public and then created a public float.

Now, after reading this, you will see why writing a PPM before you know who your audience is and before you’ve contracted with a consulting firm is a critical mistake. Find a consulting firm that is well rounded as a capital raising facilitator and have them help you set a goal as an end result and then build your strategy from there.

For Corporate Consulting or Invest Seed Capital In Pre-IPO Companies, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Structure your company should spearhead your capital raising initiative. Make sure that your corporate layout is conducive to creating and retaining investor and venture capitalist attention. You should have a solid and elite executive team composed of the best of the best that your industry has to offer and if you can’t attract those in the upper echelon of your business genre, you need to take an active approach to branding them as experts using on and offline PR campaigns labeling yourselves as industry experts who are innovating industry changing solutions. Create a stir, be controversial (but not offensive) and be ready to back up your stir with empirical evidence of your knowledge and success. You should have an advisory board and board of directors composed of industry specialists. Each individual should represent a forte that makes investors start to salivate when they are reading the bio section of your business plan. They should be able to contribute with contract negotiation, strong alliance introduction capabilities and more. When choosing professionals to fill the void of adviser and director positions you should think in terms of corporate ‘growth’ and ’stabilization’.

Next you want to make sure that your entity is prepared to receive debt and/or equity capital. You’ll need a solid business plan, don’t write it yourself, you’ll only hinder your ability to raise capital. Call a professional to write your strategic business plan. Next you’ll need a way to distribute equity or debt shares, a Private Placement Memorandum is the most common mechanism for helping companies raise capital quickly and easily while staying within the regulation guidelines of the SEC. Your PPM must be written by a professional to deliver the ultimate protection for your company while simultaneously spelling out the technical intricacies of your business to the investor.

Now that your company is structured properly, you have a business plan and a PPM, you are ready to start raising capital. Your first call should be to a corporate turnaround consultant with an arsenal of global funding contacts composed of all the necessary contacts such as: venture capital firms, private equity firms, angel investors, private investors, accredited investors, structured finance firms and so on. This turnaround consultant, if they are part of an established firm (always use a small boutique firm if you can find one, they are much more affective and one on one than the larger firms and tend to get the job done quicker without the headaches) they will have a service call and ‘Investor Finder’ service. They will reach into their gargantuan bag of contacts and give you so many funding options your head will spin, thus, making your fund raising efforts fast and painless.

Now that you achieved your first round of fund raising it’s time to get serious. Yes! It’s time to take your company public. Stay away from Pink Sheets and Reverse Mergers, you’ll only regret it. If you are a smaller business or a startup, your best bet is the OTCBB. Go back to your turnaround consultant and have them start putting you through the sec audit, sec registration, FINRA registration and Market Maker joint venture and S1 filing. They should be able to handle the entire ‘going public’ process for you and in 4 to 7 months, you’re public and trading.

Be sure to take advantage of the multitude of strategies to capitalize off of your securities. Remember there are many ways to capitalize off of your shares, selling shares through your market maker, continuously engaging in heavy PR to stabilize and enhance your stock price and another way that many entrepreneurs don’t consider as an option when raising capital, the almighty hedge lender will can lend your company money against your collateralized securities. Yes! Use your stock as security for financing. After you pay off the loan, line of credit or lease you get those shares back (be sure that your lawyer audits your contract with the lender to keep away from any convertible stock clauses). So now you are raising capital by selling stock as well as the ‘on demand’ loan or LOC concept of security backed lending.

Congratulations! You’ve just completed ‘Real’ corporate finance 101! Now get out there, put your company together and start raising the capital you need.

For Corporate Consulting or Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Your company is growing. Now you are ready to start raising serious capital and you here the public fund raising markets. Here are the basics of your S-1 filing. Know the lingo before you hire a consultant. Because companies must adhere strictly to SEC regulations, initial prospectuses are similar in their organization. Each S-1 generally consists of the following sections:

Front Section — An S-1 contains a small amount of information not available in a prospectus. In this first section, you can quickly find the issuing company’s phone number and get a vague sense of the future offering price.

Cover/Inside Cover — The prospectus cover outlines the general terms of the offering, including names of the underwriters, number of shares offered, and pricing information. The actual share price is absent from a prospectus until the day of the offering.

Prospectus Summary — Here you will find a brief synopsis of the company’s business and history, a modest discussion of the change in capitalization to occur as a result of the offering, and a useful summary of financial information covering the last five years, if available. If you are screening prospectuses for investment ideas, start here.

Risk Factors — After you have read a few prospectuses, you will become familiar with the “usual suspects” in this section, including “Possible Volatility of Stock,” “Limited History of operations,” “Dilution,” and “Dependence on Key Personnel.” Nevertheless, this section is a worthwhile read to be sure that you understand the challenges facing the company’s management. The discussion of competition can be sobering, but it can also provide a means to compare the value of the issuer against the financial performance and market valuation of its competitors.

Taking your company public should be an exciting and revitalizing time. Don’t take unnecessary risks, hire a consulting firm who can streamline this process and deliver the results you’ll need for success!

Need S-1 Filing Info? Take Your Company Public, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Are you a business owner raising capital with a Regulation D Rule exemption (504, 505 or 506) also referred to as a Private Placement Memorandum, PPM or Offering Memorandum? If you are using this mechanism to raise capital then you’ll, no doubt, have to have a solid comprehension of the most distinct and important part of the Private Placement Memorandum referred to as the ‘Offering Circular’.

When your consultant or attorney is asking you for details on everything from business location to management, from dividends to risk details, you need to make sure that this information is complete and accurate. You’ll need to audit the documents after they are completed. A solid Offering Circular has kept countless companies from being sued by investors that didn’t get the investment return they were anticipating.

While the business plan is meant to grab the initial attention of the investor or funding source, the Offering Memorandum is meant to spell out the down and dirty details of the venture so that you are protected from lawsuits down the road, while simultaneously exposing the various ins and outs of your venture to give a ‘reality check’ to the investor before they hand over the cash.

The offering circular needs to be powerful yet very compact without the redundancies of using space to say the same things over and over again to pull the investors attention from the negative to the potential profit margins or management’s impressive pedigree. With all this said, yes it’s true the offering circular is one of the parts of a PPM spells out the technical aspects of the enterprise with a focus on inherent risk of investing but this can be done in a balanced way to also demonstrate the positive aspects of your venture by giving solid descriptions of your management team and, in place, distribution centers and contracts in place ready for capitalization.

When authoring the offering circular demonstrate the risks with a well balanced demonstration of the system in place to overcome these risks and dominate your market niche.

Call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183 if you would like to talk to someone about yourOffering Circular, Want to Take Your Company Public We Can Help!

Are you trying to raise capital for your start-up or corporation in expansion? Have you exhausted your traditional institutional sources and hedge fund contacts? Don’t lose hope just yet! First of all, take all those pamphlets and brochures from banks and other traditional lenders that are lying all over your desk and toss them in the trash…they are absolutely useless.

Banks don’t have your company’s best interest in mind as they are hardly even staying afloat in this economy. Today’s institutional financier isn’t qualified to run a bath let alone a bank. Don’t put your future in the untested hands of a 20 something knucklehead. After you’ve tossed all that useless info in the trash, clear your head and then look at your company and ask yourself a few tough questions: Is your company invest-able? Do you and your executive staff have a pedigree that investors deem as seasoned enough to take their money and make affective use of it and not lose it? What proprietary concepts/technology/patents do you have that give you a larger market share with the proper cash infusion? What is your current capital/debt situation?

If, after pondering these questions you’ve come to the conclusion you honestly, truly have something worth pursuing then the next step is to look at the reality that your company is worthy of a public offering. Stay away from Pink Sheets and be weary of reverse mergers and in reality your company won’t qualify for the NASDAQ so the quickest way to raise public capital is the OTCBB (over the counter bulletin boards).

OTCBB is an SEC regulated platform that has a solid investor following and market makers that can effectively promote your stock to rapidly raise capital. Don’t let these difficult economic times steal your dreams of corporate prosperity and personal growth.

If you have a solid business concept, there is a way to fund it. Look into the OTCBB, it’s your best bet for an inexpensive public offering with a direct path to long term funding.

Take Your Company Public, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Many entrepreneurs and executives want to move forward with the process of going public merely for the ability to raise capital through the sale of stock. They usually don’t think of the strategies necessary to keep the momentum going such as how much equity to give up initially, how much equity to sell ongoing, how to capitalize off of the use of the securities as collateral for loans and lines of credit and so on.

One of the most profound strategies companies can use to retain company equity while capitalizing off of their public entity is to put up portions of their securities as temporary collateral for loans and to use securities to grow through acquisition of strategic alliances.

Stock should be looked at as cash and designated for appropriate purchasing strategies. Stock monetized through collateralized lending can work wonders as long as the exit strategy is in place and secure. Your attorney should be well versed in this activity and audit the contract for convertible aspects which could strip the transaction of its advantageous nature.

Debt that converts to equity means giving up a huge bartering chip for future transactions. Don’t give up equity unless you have to. There are scores of companies that will lend against your securities without having to give up long term equity. Use this strategy wisely and you’ll never have a problem getting capital.

Also, using stock to purchase strategic partners is more relevant now than ever. Purchasing a company with stock that can be monetized over time is an incredible way to grow through acquisition. Going public on the OTCBB is a quick and easy way to start using the countless capabilities for capitalization with a public entity. Going public simply to raise capital with your market maker or broker dealer would be selling yourself short. Take advantage of the countless ways your securities can work for you.

Take Your Company Public, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!