WASHINGTON—Paul Atkins spent much of his first year at the helm of the Securities and Exchange Commission trying to give Americans more opportunities to invest.
“We have half as many public companies as we did 40 years ago,” Atkins told The Daily Wire in his office this week. “The reason why we have a diminishing number of public companies is that as you have mergers and bankruptcies, you don’t have newbies coming in and your population will dwindle.”
“We need to shake things up,” Atkins added. “So I’m pushing my team harder and we can go faster.”
Atkins, who served on the SEC for six years under President George W. Bush, says he has a mandate from President Donald Trump to “make IPOs great again.” The chairman believes the SEC can incentivize companies through a deregulatory push eliminating burdensome and outdated rules. At the direction of President Trump the agency is exploring reducing company reporting requirements from quarterly earnings reports to semi-annual filings.
Regulatory reporting forces companies into a costly cycle of legal and compliance work — one many cite as a key reason to stay private. Warren Buffett and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned in 2018 that the system even pressures companies to manage for the quarter at the expense of long-term performance.
Atkins told The Daily Wire that regulators are preparing to seek public comment on the potential reporting requirements shift. Even if the proposal moves forward, he said, companies would not be required to change, preserving flexibility based on investor demand.
“We haven’t always had quarterly reporting,” Atkins said. “When the SEC was created in 1934, companies reported annually. In 1955, that shifted to semiannual reporting, and it wasn’t until 1970 that quarterly reporting became the standard.”
The SEC is also exploring a more tailored regulatory framework based on company size, including separate categories for small- and mid-sized firms. “There are a lot of expensive provisions that are probably not really applicable to smaller companies.” He added, “This is all part of … modernizing, clarifying our jurisdiction, and transforming to make our rulebook fit for purpose.”
At the center of Atkins’ agenda is a return to the SEC’s core mission as defined by Congress: protecting investors, maintaining fair and efficient markets, and facilitating capital formation. Under Atkins, the agency withdrew its defense for costly rules that required companies to disclose climate-related risks and ended regulation by enforcement.
But in some areas, the agency is adding rules to “clarify and modernize” its expectations, effectively ending regulation by enforcement — where ambiguity was resolved in the courts rather than through clearer definitions in the SEC’s rulebook.
“We can’t just wave a wand and do it,” Atkins said. “So it sounds like we’re going back to regulation, but we’re not.”
He says the agency had drifted in recent years toward heavier enforcement and regulation, often at the expense of market access and innovation. By refocusing on capital formation, Atkins believes the SEC can strengthen markets while expanding opportunities for everyday investors.
But regulation isn’t the only place where Atkins is rethinking the SEC. He’s also working closely with Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Mike Selig, breaking a contentious history between the two agencies.
Atkins and Selig are working closely to more clearly define where the SEC’s authority ends and the CFTC’s begins — particularly in emerging areas like digital assets. In the past, Atkins said, the lack of clarity created confusion and pushed companies offshore to develop their financial products where investors are not as protected. He pointed to the collapse of FTX, a major crypto exchange, that lacked oversight leading to billions of dollars lost.
Atkins believes the agency can strike a balance between investor protection and fostering innovation in the markets.
“I believe that our capital markets must continue to reflect our national character,” Atkins said. “They must continue to lead the world in their depth, in their dynamism, and in their capacity to translate ingenuity into prosperity.”
