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How can regulation provide public access to private market value creation and ensure private companies hold themselves accountable to public good?

Ani Banerjee

Co-founder at Andromeda Group

Yeah. And look, I think there are two parts to that question. Number one, even if you remain a private company for 25 years or 30 years, you can still be producing goods and services that is good for the public. Which also means that that will be a positive feedback loop for innovation because, if you are the CEO of a company building product, which you know has got immense traction and which the public loves and comes back for more, that's a good thing. And if you're able to have the capital behind you to continue to sustain that path, that's a good thing for the public, right? 

To your point about whether the public will have access to these companies, that's an interesting point you raise. I do think there is some truth to the fact that, if the company stays private for too long, it'll only go into the hands of the very strong, i.e., the family offices and the large VCs or the large investors, and then it'll that'll tend to crowd out the smaller investors. 

But maybe that doesn't need to happen. I'll give you a great example. There are lots of companies who only want to float 20% of their cap table, and only 20% of the company is floated. The remaining 80% is still controlled by the founders or the founding families or whoever they may be. You can do a similar thing. You can have a privately traded corporation. And you can have a small percentage of your cap table public so that there is some access to the public and the majority still can remain private and have private transactions in different sizes than blocks.

I don't know, this is TBD and something I'm sure will evolve over time. But that's the way I'm seeing it, at least for the moment.

Find this answer in Ani Banerjee, co-founder of Andromeda Group, on secondary diligence and companies staying private
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