Opinion
IPO Disclosure is a Mess — Here’s a Simple Way to Fix It
— January 6, 2022

By Aswath Damodaran, Maxime C. Cohen and Daniel M. McCarthy
By Aswath Damodaran, Maxime C. Cohen and Daniel M. McCarthy
We believe this divergence reflects more than just the usual risk of investing in the stock market and IPOs in particular. Rather, it reflects outdated IPO disclosure requirements – rules that have led to bloated prospectuses but still miss the most important information that investors need in evaluating unprofitable companies.
As we discuss in detail in a recent paper, the Securities and Exchange Commission could fix this with two simple measures: triggered disclosures and common standards for investment metrics. But before we explain the measures and why they will help, this is what to know about the problem is and how we got here.
Read the full MarketWatch article.
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Aswath Damodaran holds the Kerschner Family Chair in Finance Education and is Professor of Finance at New York University Stern School of Business.