My partner Steve Melore and I braved the latest New York snow storm to attend the Small Business Investor Alliance’s Northeast Private Equity Conference on January 22, of which Farrell Fritz was a sponsor. The SBIA is the leading professional organization for lower middle-market investment funds and the LPs that invest in them.
The
On January 2, 2014, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) published its annual priorities letter for 
2014, chief among which will be IPOs, general solicitation in private offerings, crowdfunding portals and microcap fraud.
IPOs
In the area of IPOs, FINRA intends to focus on “spinning,” a practice in which an underwriter allocates “hot” IPO shares