warrants Archives

For private companies looking to raise capital through exemptions such as Regulation A+, Regulation CF, or Regulation D, there are many forms of securities that they may be able to issue to investors. Lately, there has been much buzz around warrants for RegA+ offerings and we are seeing them issued to investors as an equivalent to a perk. With the growing interest in this type of security, let’s explore what a warrant for RegA+ is.

When a shareholder purchases a warrant, they are entering into a contract with the issuer. They purchase securities at a set price but are given the right to buy more securities at a fixed price. For example, if an investor was to buy a security at $1 apiece, but their warrant allows the shareholder to buy securities at a future point for $2 instead. If the company was to significantly increase in value, and securities were valued at $5 instead of the initial $1 they were purchased at, the warrant could be exercised and new securities can be purchased for the price specified in the contract. Such securities are typically sought after by investors who think the company they’ve invested in will significantly increase in value, allowing them to increase their ownership in the company without having to buy securities at a new, higher price. Typically, warrants have an expiration date, but they can be exercised anytime on or before that date.

Warrants for RegA+ work no differently.

For companies offering warrants to shareholders, many will choose to enlist a warrant agent to oversee the management of warrants. Much like a transfer agent, warrant agents maintain a record of who owns warrants as well as the exercising of the warrants. When there is a significant number of warrant holders, warrant agents maintain the administrative duties of ensuring warrant holders can exercise their rights and are issued additional securities when they are looking to do so. Just as KoreConX is an SEC-registered transfer agent, KoreConX can serve as your warrant agent as well. This allows you and your shareholders to perform all transactions, from the initial purchase to the exercising of the warrant, through the RegA+ end-to-end platform. Fully compliant, KoreConX helps you to ensure that all your capital market activities meet the necessary regulatory requirements.

For warrant holders looking to exercise their warrants, they can contact the warrant agent (if they bought shares directly from the company) or their broker-dealer to inform them that they would like to purchase additional securities. At the time of the purchase, the warrant holder would pay to exchange their warrants and be issued the appropriate amount of new securities.

Warrants are also able to be traded or transferred. For example, warrant holders could transfer their securities to a child or relative if they were looking to pass them down. Alternatively, warrant holders can sell them to an interested buyer. If the company’s value has yet to exceed the warrant price, they are typically less valuable because shares may still be able to be purchased at a lower price.

An increasing number of issuers have been using Regulation A to make continuous offerings of units, consisting of a combination of equity, often common stock, and warrants to purchase the same equity at a future date. Under the Securities Act, the units, the shares of stock, the warrants and the shares of stock issuable upon exercise of the warrants are separate securities whose offer and sale must be registered on a registration statement or covered by an exemption from registration such as Regulation A. That is why offering statements under Regulation A list each of these individually and why the SEC requires the validity opinion filed as an exhibit to the offering statement to cover all of them (See Staff Legal Bulletin No. 19, available at https://www.sec.gov/interps/legal/cfslb19.htm ).

Most warrants that are part of these structures are exercisable for more than a year after their date of issuance, often up to 18 months. Since the exercise of the warrant and payment of the exercise price for the underlying shares is a new investment decision by the warrant holder, the offering statement covering the underlying warrant shares must continue to be qualified under Regulation A in order for the new shares to be covered by the exemption from registration. That means that an issuer must keep the offering statement “evergreen,” or qualified for at least 2 to 3 years to cover those exercises, even if the offering of the units is completed before the first anniversary of qualification. Most Regulation A offerings permit rolling closings. The effective date of a warrant is typically the date on which a closing is held and a warrant is issued to an investor. For example, if an issuer commences a Regulation A offering on the date its offering statement is qualified (let’s say February 1, 2021) and holds its first closing of units on March 1, the warrants issued in that closing are exercisable until September 1, 2022, well past the anniversary of qualification. Assuming the offering stays open for at least 9 months and the final closing is held on November 1, 2021, the warrants issued in that final closing are exercisable until May 1, 2023.

Under the securities laws, registration statements for continuous offerings are kept updated, or “evergreen,” when an issuer complies with its reporting obligations under the Exchange Act by filing timely periodic reports such as their annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K. However, since the analogous periodic reports under Regulation A are filed under the Securities Act, their filing does not keep the offering statement evergreen. If an offering is to extend more than one year from qualification, issuers conducting continuous offerings need to file post qualification amendments (“PQA”) in accordance with Rule 252(f)(i) every 12 months after the qualification date to update the offering statement, which includes incorporating the financial statements from the periodic reports filed during the previous 12 months. If the original offering statement was scheduled to terminate before the warrant exercise period ended, the PQA would also need to extend the termination date. A PQA in those circumstances renders the offering statement un-qualified and subject to a possible new SEC review, which means an issuer may continue to make offers (so long as the financials are not stale yet) but may not make sales, such as the issuance of warrant shares upon exercise of warrants, until the SEC re-qualifies the offering statement (See our blog post on updating continuous offerings: https://www.crowdcheck.com/blog/updating-continuous-offerings-under-regulation). Using our example above, the issuer of units would need to at a minimum file a PQA in sufficient time before February 1, 2022 to allow for a possible Staff review and comment period to meet the annual requirement under Rule 252. Moreover, if the unit offering lasts more than 6 months after the original qualification date, an issuer should anticipate having to file a second PQA in early 2023 to cover the exercise of warrants issued in the last closing of the offering.

Warrant issuers should also keep in mind some additional steps they will need to take. The subscription agreement and the warrants themselves will need to include additional reps, warranties and covenants, such as a covenant to keep the offering statement evergreen. Plus, even after qualifying the PQA with the SEC, the issuer will need to insure that it is current with state notice filings, which typically need to be renewed every 12 months as well.

Tag: warrants

Warrants for RegA+

Warrant Issuers, Keep Your Offering Statement Evergreen

Join the all-in-one platform empowering private capital markets.

The All-In-One Platform