Back to business? Whither Rule 144(i) Relief?

I got a number of calls yesterday that reminded me of the Monday following the terrorist attacks on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That was the day that clients called and said to us, basically, “Get back to work and finish that deal.”

At least three different projects that were on hold for the last few weeks are now moving forward again. Several transactions that were not technically on hold but which were seeming to drag more than normal suddenly scheduled closing dates or were restructured to get completed. I even got started on a completely new transaction.

These are all good signs that Wall Street is ready to get back to business. We seem to be past the “deer in the headlights” attitude that pervaded the last few weeks. This is good.

One victim of this crisis, at least in terms of timing, may well be our effort to push for the elimination of the “evergreen” requirement in new Rule 144(i) (see prior posts) sometime before the election. Our request for rulemaking, submitted on October 2, probably has very little chance of seeing action by the Securities and Exchange Commission this month. And one assumes that it is likely that Chairman Christopher Cox will not be here after the election, since he is a Republican not likely to be kept if Obama wins, and his fellow Republican John McCain has called for his resignation. I remain very hopeful, however, that we can effect this change, and will continue to push, even if it takes a little while.

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