Almost 1 in 10 American companies that went public in 2010 did so outside the United States.
The companies sought foreign exchanges for a variety of reasons, including lack of investor interest at home, increased regulatory costs in the States, smaller legal costs abroad, and the potential for more global customers, The New York Times reports.
In total, 10 companies went public abroad -- in countries like Australia, Britain, Taiwan, South Korea, and Canada -- after 75 did so from 2000 to 2009. It’s a vast increase from the two that did between 1991 and 1999. The trend mirrors another problematic statistic for the United States, namely that the U.S. has seen a 40 percent decline in public companies since 1997 -- a drop from more than 8,800 to about 5,100 by the end of 2009.
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