The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday voted to ease financial reporting requirements for nearly 1,000 companies by expanding the definition of which firms qualify as smaller sized and therefore are eligible for less stringent disclosure requirements, the Wall Street Journal reported. Newly adopted amendments define a “smaller reporting company” as one with less than $250 million in publicly traded shares, up from the previous definition of $75 million. The agency also expanded the definition to include companies with less than $100 million in annual revenue if they also have less than $700 million in publicly held shares. The previous revenue test allowed “scaled disclosure” of a company with no publicly traded shares and less than $50 million in annual revenues. The SEC estimates that the move will allow an additional 966 to be eligible for smaller reporting company status over the first year under the new definition.
