Roth Conference Reveals IPO & Energy Investment Surge

The 27th Annual Roth Conference was buzzing as usual this year in beautiful Dana Point, CA.  It was another successful year with cutting edge presentations, keynote addresses and networking opportunities. The first thing that struck us about the show was a shift in attendee demographics. There appeared to be more investment bankers at the show, which proves that investment in emerging companies continues to grow.

With so many bankers in attendance, it’s not surprising that conversations focused on IPO activity.  Would 2015 surpass 2014’s 275 IPO filings – highest we’ve seen since the dot.com era? Although 2015 has gotten off to a slower start, the IPO trend still seems to be going strong especially with companies like Etsy, GoPro, Uber, Airbnb expected to file this year.

Concerning IPOs, attendees we spoke to were particularly interested in printing and printing costs associated with the IPO process.  We learned that some printing bills had reached several thousand dollars for recent filings. For attorneys handling IPOs we recommended that they reevaluate current printer fees in order to save their clients thousands of dollars in overall charges. Attorneys, CFOs and others involved in IPOs should be looking for financial printers that offer fixed pricing contracts. This helps IPOs stay on budget. If you want to learn more, read our recent blog post on printing costs.

The energy sector was also a hot topic at this year’s show. We saw more energy investors this year.  Last year’s attendees showed more interest in the healthcare market, while this year’s investors were looking at the clean technology, oil, gas and mining fields. But don’t sell the healthcare market short, there were still a fair share of presentations and interested parties discussing the health care and pharmaceutical market.

While the Edgar Agents team was not able to make it to every Panel discussion, there were a number of memorable ones such as shareholder activism, energy markets and IPO readiness, with a special presentation from Keynote speaker Martin E. Franklin, founder and executive chairman of Jarden Corporation.

On the lighter side, the conference offered many networking opportunities from morning yoga classes to a concert from Fall Out Boy.  With such an exciting program on educational sessions and networking opportunities, The Roth Conference remains a major event in the financial industry for attorneys, CEOs, accountants, investors and basically anyone working in the small to mid-cap space.  We look forward to seeing you at next year’s event!

The Edgar Agents Booth during the Roth Conference.

The Cro-nuts were a BIG hit at the Edgar Agents Booth during the conference.

Left to right: Teresa Cordero, Vice President, Edgar Agents; Darrin M. Ocasio, Partner at Sichenzia Ross Friedman Ference LLP; Alla Mekhtieva, Business Development, Edgar Agents.

Get To Know Edgar Agents: Typesetting & Financial Printing Services

At Edgar Agents, we pride ourselves on being a full service financial printer that helps companies with all their compliance needs from EDGAR and XBRL to financial printing and newswire services. In fact, a number of our earlier blog posts highlight these services.

In addition to filing financial information electronically with the SEC, companies are required to provide investors with printed information from proxy statements to earnings reports. Did you know that Edgar Agents has a comprehensive financial printing and typesetting service available for public companies, mutual funds, and IPOs?

Read our Typesetting and Financial Printing FAQ to learn more:

Does Edgar Agents offer typesetting and print services?
Edgar Agents is a financial compliance services group with extensive typesetting and printing services to handle everything from Annual Reports, Proxy Statements, Quarterly reports, Prospectuses, IPO equity offerings, mutual funds and other financial information. For more than 15 years, our printing experts have helped companies manage their entire project from EDGARizing, typesetting, printing, coordinating shipping distribution to the transfer agent, and full mailing capabilities to shareholders.

Leveraging automated technology, we provide single source publishing directly from typeset to EDGAR in a matter of minutes for accurate revisions and seamless proof distributions. Our enhanced programming and quality control procedures ensure integrity that you can count on.

How does Edgar Agents distinguish itself in the competitive financial services industry?At Edgar Agents, we take pride in delivering the highest level of customer service in the industry. This includes providing a concierge-level of service where we guide customers through the entire financial printing process and take a proactive approach to meeting your internal deadlines as well as SEC deadlines. Our team is focused on quality, accuracy and timeliness for every project we work on – each and every day.

Unique to the industry, we offer fixed rate pricing and custom packages. We never charge for rush projects or overnight and weekend projects. Our team is available 24×7 to help you at no extra cost. The rate you are quoted is the rate you are charged.

What is a single source typesetting platform?Edgar Agents leverages a single source platform for typesetting and financial printing. This allows critical, market sensitive filings to be drafted and executed seamlessly.

Specifically, the term single source refers to the single data file that is used to generate the EDGAR HTML submission and the typeset print version of a document. Using a single source platform ensures that the data for both the print document and filing submission is identical.

Having a single data source provides a significant time advantage. Your company or working group can concentrate on crafting the deal, not expending valuable energy on reviewing the content.

Does the Edgar Agents typesetting platform offer “granular” SEC compliant marking?Yes, all Edgar Agents typeset projects support SEC compliant granular marking, whereby individual words and number changes are discretely marked for each group drafting session.

Draft distributions of current marked and cumulatively marked proofs will ensure that your working group will be able to clearly see how and where the document has evolved since the last working group distribution.

Does the typesetting platform support distribution of changed pages only?Yes, our current marked drafts will contain only those pages that have changed specifically to the drafting session.

Will you be able to match and follow our style specifications and work with our art director?Edgar Agents welcomes stylized annual reports and specialized typesetting projects. We are happy to work with your team to ensure content and style accuracy. Reviewing your unique style requirements before your project deadline will allow our team to prepare a proof of concept for your art director.

For example, Edgar Agents typesetting process includes creating templates and applying style sheets to generate print ready documents. We create customized style sheets that conform to any style when generating output. Because we are able to work with any typesetting software such as XPP, InDesign and QuarkXPress, we guarantee high quality visual and structured layouts that are always accurate and secure.

Can you help us with the images in our document?
Edgar Agents can recreate and redraft line charts, organizational charts, pie charts and structural diagrams ensuring that the filing and the final printed document will have sharp high resolution images that are color corrected for printing.

Do you provide high resolution PDFs for typesetting?For all typesetting projects we provide our customers with high resolution print ready PDFs, Microsoft Word write backs or HTML exports. Other formats are available on request.

If I use your typesetting services, do I have to use your printing services?Customers can choose to use Edgar Agents for just typesetting and/or printing services. Traditionally customers use both our typesetting and printing services as it is more cost effective and we can offer custom pricing packages. By combining both services you are assured the highest quality result from beginning to end.

What type of printing technology does Edgar Agents use?Edgar Agents uses state-of-the-art digital or offset web presses for all our financial printing. By working directly with our print team on your print project, Edgar Agents can get your books printed on schedule and delivered cost effectively. Many deals that clear overnight can be on the street by morning.

#GetToKnowEdgarAgents Today!  Follow us on Twitter @EdgarAgentsLLC.

And What About This Booming IPO Activity?

Could this be the age of IPOs? I think “yes.”  

In 2014, there were 275 IPOs. We haven’t seen these kinds of numbers since the dot-com era.  According to a Money Morning report (titled The Five Biggest 2015 IPOs to Watch), companies that IPOed in 2014 were on average more successful than their counterparts 10 years ago. New stocks have averaged a 13.1% jump from their offer prices this year. Over the previous 10 years, new stocks gained 9.8% on average, the report states.

And 2015 is off to a great start with extremely successful IPOs like Box Inc. and Shake Shack Inc., both valued in the billions on opening day. Box Inc. priced its shares at $14, above the expected range of $11 to $13, and trading opened at $20.20. The company was valued at $1.7 billion. Shares of gourmet hamburger chain Shake Shack Inc. soared 150 percent in their first few minutes of trading, valuing the company at nearly $2 billion.

Currently in the works are seven new IPOs which are expected to raise $9 billion this week alone. They are Inovalon Holdings (INOV), Sol-Wind Renewable Power, LP (SLWD), Great Ajax (AJX) Invitae (NVTA), Bellerophon Therapeutics (BLPH), AutoGenomics (AGMX) and Avenue Financial Holdings (AVNU).  Other high profile companies expected to file for IPO in 2015 include Uber, Airbnb Inc. and GoPro. All this IPO activity is a great sign that the economy is growing and the financial markets are strong.

Any company that has been through an IPO knows  there are a lot of factors to consider when you announce IPO plans – producing financials, filing with the SEC, meeting with investment banks, and communicating to potential investors. When I talk to companies considering an IPO, there is a growing concern from CFOs about the overall cost of an IPO, which can run into the hundred thousands.

For many companies, financial-printing bills are their third-largest expense, after lawyer and banker fees, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.  The WSJ article mentions how some major financial printers inflate their rates, sometimes by hundreds of thousands of dollars.  With IPOs on the rise, it appears that some printers are looking to capitalize on this trend.  However, this practice hurts the credibility of the entire financial printing industry.

At Edgar Agents, we do things differently. We offer flat rates that help keep costs down. The Edgar Agents IPO package consists of one price for printing the initial registration statement, amendments, correspondence filings and two print runs. With fixed fees and custom pricing packages (if required), IPOs can trust that the final bill will not have unexpected charges.

If your company or a company you work with is considering an IPO in 2015, you can trust Edgar Agents to keep IPO costs down while ensuring that the company is compliant and under budget. Call Edgar Agents today to find out more about our services and how our customized pricing packages can help you save money.

Who is Edgar Agents?

Working with a filing agent is all about trust. Public companies trust filing agents with their financial data. They trust the agent to format, convert and file the information with the SEC on-time and accurately. The first step to building trust with a filing agent is to understand who the agency is and how they work.

Companies that work with Edgar Agents know they can trust us with all their filing needs from EDGAR to XBRL to financial printing requirements. If you haven’t worked with Edgar Agents before, we have pulled together some commonly asked questions about the company.

Who is Edgar Agents?
For more than 15 years, Edgar Agents has been filing documents with SEC for public companies. From annual 10-Ks, quarterly 10-Qs to 8-Ks, Registration Statements and Section 16 filings, we guide customers through each step of the filing process by providing unparalleled customer service and accurate and prompt turn around times, all at an incomparably competitive price. Our team of filing experts is dedicated to helping public companies accurately communicate their financial data to investors and regulators through EDGAR and XBRL filings; financial printing and newswire services.

Do you offer more than EDGAR filing services?
Yes, we are a full service filing agent and can help with much more than just traditional EDGAR filings. Over the past five years we have greatly expanded our service offering to include XBRL conversions and tagging, IPO services, typesetting and financial printing.

How many filings does Edgar Agents perform?
Edgar Agents is one of the Top 10 most active full service SEC filing agents in the US and one of the Top 20 for all filing agents, law firms and transfer agents. In 2014, we handled 3,418 LIVE filings. Over the past two years we have consistently grown our filings by more than 20%, making us one of the top 5 fastest growing SEC filers. You can view the SEC’s Most Active Filing Agents list at www.secinfo.com/$/SEC/Agents.asp.

How many publicly traded companies do you work with?
We work with over 500 publicly traded companies on a regular basis. Our customers range from small and medium sized companies to large Fortune 100 companies. We have long-standing relationships with the top corporate law firms.

What is the company’s philosophy?
At Edgar Agents, we view trust, integrity and quality of service as our greatest asset. Our philosophy is to provide the best financial reporting solutions possible at minimal burden to the client. We are dedicated to providing our customers with the highest quality service and believe in partnering with our customers to help them meet all their financial reporting needs.

What sets Edgar Agents apart from other filing agents?
The Edgar Agents leadership team is comprised of experts in the industry who have specialty knowledge around EDGAR, XBRL and printing. Our team members have held positions at many of the larger filing agencies.

What sets Edgar Agents apart from other companies in this space is our commitment to customer service and our personalized approach to client needs. Our customers work with dedicated filing experts who create personalized SEC filing services to meet their specific requirements. As a result, customers quickly build a high-level of trust with Edgar Agents.

While many filers approach every SEC filing the same regardless of the company type or size, we understand that every business is unique. We treat all our customers – small and large – with the individual attention required to ensure that every SEC filing is processed correctly. We do not outsource our services, allowing our CPA experts to work with you on all your filings. For example, changes to the EDGAR or XBRL are taken over the phone and a proof is sent within minutes. A dedicated EDGAR account manager confirms receipt of your files within moments of receiving the email.

What is Edgar Agents pricing structure?
Edgar Agents prides itself in its transparent billing practices with clear flat rate pricing. Unlike others in the industry, we do not charge extra for rushed jobs or overnight and weekend jobs. For pricing regarding our specific services or to learn about our IPO pricing package, please contact info@edgaragents.com

#GetToKnowEdgarAgents Today!  Follow us on Twitter @EdgarAgentsLLC.

Silver Lining for IPOs Amidst Recent Bad News

It was recently discovered that companies preparing for their initial public offering (IPO) were being overcharged for printing and typesetting services, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal, making financial printing and typesetting the third largest cost in the IPO process. A trend like this can really hurt an issuer engaged in a stressful IPO. However, there is a way to avoid this. Printers that offer custom pricing packages and printing solutions for IPOs allow companies to stay within their budget.

An initial printing estimate can increase by several thousands of dollars by the end of the process due to ambiguous billing. Extra costs with confusing language and lack of transparency are a dangerous combination, but printing firms that offer fixed fees and custom pricing are the silver lining. For instance, the Edgar Agents fixed rate for IPOs consists of one price for printing the initial registration statement, amendments, correspondence filings and two print runs. With fixed fees or even custom pricing, IPOs can trust that the final bill will not be padded with unexpected charges.

Nevertheless, some issuers might still want to work with the larger firms because their lawyer or banker encouraged it. According to the WSJ article, companies preparing to go public normally choose a printer recommended by their lawyer or banker, and many times these professionals choose a printer because of their long term relationship with a sales person or customer representative. But before making a decision, issuers should know about fixed priced printing solutions like the single source processing option available from Edgar Agents.

With single source processing, Edgar Agents can streamline the entire printing procedure as all outputs are updated instantaneously, increasing efficiency and accuracy. The single source web-based editor and real-time editing assures everyone is always working on the most current version, even simultaneously. Changes flow through the entire document and the system is always highly secure.

Private companies engaged in an IPO cannot afford to be taken advantage of and need partners they can trust to deliver the highest quality service at affordable prices.  As the WSJ article points out, going with the largest printer might not be the right partnership for your company. The Edgar Agents philosophy is to always provide the best solutions possible at minimal burden to the client. For more information about Edgar Agents, visit our site www.edgaragents.com or simply call an Edgar Agent representative at 732-780-5036.