A company is considered "publicly held" during any period of time that the company is required to file 10-ks with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission. We applied the following rules to determine whether a company was required to file 10-ks with the SEC:
A. To be included in the study, the company had to have filed a 10-k for a period ending not earlier than three years prior to the bankruptcy filing and not later than the date of confirmation of the chapter 11 plan.
B. Even though a company meets the requirements of paragraph A, we excluded the company from the study if the company became private before the filing of the Chapter 11 case. The most likely indicator that a company has become private is the complete cessation of SEC filings, including 10-Qs. For example, we classified Farley as private even though it made "T" filings.
C. If a company is on the SEC list, we presumed it is required to file 10-ks with the SEC. However, the company may still have been excluded if we discovered that it was not required to file 10-ks.
D. The mere absence of required 10-Ks around the time of filing was not a basis for excluding a company from the study.