Form S-1 is an

SEC filing The SEC filing is a financial statement or other formal document submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Public companies, certain insiders, and broker-dealers are required to make regular SEC filings. Investors and financi ...

used by companies planning on going public to register their securities with the

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...

(SEC) as the "registration statement by the Securities Act of 1933". The S-1 contains the basic business and financial information on an issuer with respect to a specific securities offering. Investors may use the prospectus to consider the merits of an offering and make educated investment decisions. A prospectus is one of the main documents used by an investor to research a company prior to an initial public offering (

IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

). Other less detailed registration forms, such as

Form S-3 Form S-3 is the most simplified securities registration form used by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It may only be used by companies that have been required to report under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 for a minimum of twelve m ...

may be used for certain registrations. Every business day, S-1 forms are filed with the SEC's EDGAR filing system, the required filing format of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. However many of these are of the related Form S-1/A, which is used for filing amendments to a previously filed Form S-1. The S-1 form has an

OMB approval number The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 (Pub. L. No. 96-511, 94 Stat. 2812, codified at ) is a United States federal law enacted in 1980 designed to reduce the total amount of paperwork burden the federal government imposes on private businesses and c ...

of 3234-0065 and the online form is only 8 pages long. However the simplicity of the form's design is belied by the OMB Office's figure of the estimated average burden – 972.32 hours. This means that much time and effort in preparation of the form is being used to collect and display information about the filer (a corporate registrant or new registrant who intends to offer securities). The S-1 form requires that the registrant provide information from diverse sources and incorporate this information using many rules or regulations, such as General Rules and Regulations under the Securities Act, Regulation C,

Regulation S-K Regulation S-K is a prescribed regulation under the US Securities Act of 1933 that lays out reporting requirements for various SEC filings used by public companies. Companies are also often called issuers (issuing or contemplating issuing shares) ...

and Regulation S-X. Under the

JOBS Act The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, or JOBS Act, is a law intended to encourage funding of small businesses in the United States by easing many of the country's securities regulations. It passed with bipartisan support, and was signed into ...

, it has been possible since April 2012 for "emerging growth companies" to file a Form S-1 on a confidential basis, only making the contents public 21 days prior to the road show for the IPO. This quickly became a popular method for even established companies (such as

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

and

MGM Studios Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...

) to conduct securities offerings.

References

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External links

PDF of form S-1Latest S-1 filings
SEC filings