Blog Roundup: Looking on the Bright Side

This post on Naked Capitalism discusses an under-reported *upside* of mark-to-market accounting. In the third quarter, banks reclassified $610 billion in assets as "level 3" under FAS 157. The reclassification gives them much more flexibility in determining what the assets are worth.

The Center for Audit Quality (via Compliance Week) has good news for issuers who have lost accelerated filer status because their stock price is in the toilet: you don't have to file that SOX 404 auditor certification!

To be an accelerated filer, an issuer must have at least $70 million in market capitalization (market capitalization is number of shares outstanding multiplied by share price). For example, Astronics Corporation (Nasdaq:ATRO) fell below the accelerated filer cut-off in late November when its share price got below $8.22. At its current price ($8.10 x 8.51 million shares out) its market cap it $68.94 million. Earlier this year, it had a market cap of $455 million! Flotek Industries (NYSE:FTK) has had an even harder come down. In January it was a "large accelerated filer" with a market cap of $842 million. Now, after a 90% decline in share price, it has a market cap of $71.07 million.

SOX 404 has been the subject of much issuer consternation and the SEC repeatedly delayed its application to non-accelerated issuers.

Securities Docket has a post about the SEC's announcement that it is planning to distribute the fair fund from the Bear Stearns market-timing case. There's also a link to the text of the distribution plan.

Race to the Bottom has a nice summary of the corporate governance provisions of the Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act (HR 7231) as well as a status update.