The newly reconstituted Russell MicroCap Index took effect after last Friday's close. The Russell MicroCap Index is re-balanced annually to ensure accurate representation of the ever-changing market. The Index consist of the smallest 1,000 securities in the small-cap Russell 2000 Index, plus the next 1,000 smallest eligible securities by market cap. 148 issuers were added to the index on Friday. See the full list of 2016's Russell MicroCap Index additions and deletions HERE.

On Jun 10, 2016, FTSE Russell announced the preliminary rebalance of their indexes. This announcement included additions and deletions from the Russell MicroCap Index. The preliminary rebalance is the first step of the Russell Indexes' annual reconstitution. Russell rebalances all of their indexes once a year to "keep the indexes’ representation of the markets or market segments reflective of new market information". For example, when a company grows too large for the MicroCa

April saw 38 acquisition announcements made by NASDAQ, NYSE, & NYSE Mkt micro-cap issuers. Disclosed deal value for the month reached over $570 million. The majority of consideration for April acquisitions was cash (approx. $344 million). The average market cap of this month's acquirers was approx. $100 million and the average transaction value was $15 million. See the full list of NASDAQ & NYSE micro-cap issuers working on acquisitions in April below. Listed Micro-

A few weeks ago, Rovi Corp. (NASDAQ: ROVI), a small cap public company, announced that they would acquire TiVo for $1.1 billion. The $1.1 billion purchase price consists of $277 million in cash with the remainder of the price to be paid in stock of ROVI. That's about 25% cash and 75% stock. Stock is a very powerful and unique M&A tool for public acquirers. In fact, "About 18 percent of the [M&A] transactions in 2015 were entirely stock" and over 45% of M&A transactions includ

8 issuers uplisted from the OTC Markets to a senior exchange in the first quarter of 2016. 7 companies jumped from the OTC to the NASDAQ while 1 left the OTC to join the NYSE Mkt. The majority of graduates left the PINK tier of the OTC for a senior exchange. Highlights include; SPI Energy Co Ltd completing a series of acquisitions prior to uplisting and IZEA, Inc. completing two acquisitions prior to joining the NASDAQ. Congratulations to all of the Q1 2016 OTC graduates

According to a study conducted by Oxford Metrica, and commissioned by the OTC Markets Group, companies saw an average 57% increase in dollar volume after joining the OTCQX. Key findings of the study include; Trading volume by number of shares increased by 53% on average following a move to the OTCQX market Dollar volumes increased similarly by 57% on average Bid-ask spreads narrowed by 4% on average The number of broker-dealers per security rose on average by 16%. The study w

Three issuers graduated from the OTC Markets in January 2016. They all jumped to the NASDAQ and they all completed at least one acquisition prior to uplisting. Acquisitions played a pivotal role in all three issuers' ability to uplist. Below are short summaries of each graduates' business and M&A record. (1) Workhorse Group Inc. "manufactures electric drive systems for medium-duty...commercial truck platforms" and is also developing drone delivery systems. On January 7, 201

Listed below are companies that graduated from the OTC markets to a senior exchange in Q4 2015. 13 companies uplisted this quarter. Highlights include; Klondex Mines executing a $32 million acquisitions shortly after joining the NYSE Mkt, and three companies uplisting to the NASDAQ on the same day (Nov. 5). Congratulations to all of the Q4 2015 OTC graduates from the entire Acquis Team! 4th Quater 2015 OTC Markets Graduate Report: Klondex Mines Ltd. (NYSE Mkt: KLDX) Oct.

In a Huffington Post Business Blog, Brandeis University professor Ben Gomes-Casseres discusses what the “players” in M&A transactions hope to achieve with a unique comparison to poker! The main point is that the objective in virtually all M&A transactions (and JVs, alliances, consortiums, partnerships, etc.) is to make 1+1=3. Professor Gomes-Casseres compares M&A to poker as follow; “At any point in the game of business, every company holds certain cards. Some of these cards

CFO.com recently published a short article by Mark Kwilosz, CFA, of Duff & Phelps, LLC in which the author posed the question: "Should Microcap Companies Go Private?" Mark noted that "A typical microcap company spends $1.0 million to $2.5 million per year to stay public." Mark discussed two major ways that companies can justify the expense of being public. The first, and according to Mark, "most compelling” way to justify the expense is “access to funding to realize growth po