Bank of America, the Credit Suisse Group and UBS will join five other banks as members of a private system that lets institutional investors trade unregistered securities, Bloomberg reports.
The three firms will collaborate with Lehman Brothers Holdings, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Bank of New York Mellon. The system, called the Open Platform for Unregistered Securities, or OPUS-5, tracks the number of shareholders who invest in the offerings to ensure they comply with United States regulations, according to a joint statement yesterday.
Publicly traded American companies have raised $45.4 billion this year selling securities that are not registered with regulators, according to data compiled by Sagient Research Systems in San Diego.
A Securities and Exchange Commission rule allows such “private placements” when securities are sold to no more than 499 institutional buyers, each with at least $100 million in discretionary assets. Such sales do not require the more extensive disclosures required when selling stocks or bonds to the public. Goldman, FBR Capital Markets, JPMorgan Chase and Bear Stearns operate systems similar to OPUS-5.