The primary practice · NYSE & NASDAQ
The premise
Getting a company onto a national exchange is not one task; it is a campaign — financial, legal, governance, and market workstreams that must land in the right order, on one calendar, in front of two demanding audiences: the SEC and the exchange’s listing qualifications staff. Adamson Brothers runs that campaign. The firm has prepared issuers for the U.S. public markets since 1998, first as a FINRA-registered broker-dealer (CRD #46684) and today as a specialized listing advisory house.
What the advisory covers
- Listing readiness assessment — a candid measurement of the company against the target exchange’s current quantitative and governance standards: financials, float, shareholders, price, board composition, and structure.
- Path selection — direct listing, traditional IPO, Regulation A+ mini-IPO, SPAC combination, or uplisting — chosen honestly against the company’s capital needs, shareholder base, and timetable.
- Documentation coordination — S-1, F-1, or Form 1-A disclosure documents prepared with U.S.-admitted securities counsel and auditors; corporate housekeeping and governance build-out to exchange standards.
- Exchange qualification — the application, the dialogue with NASDAQ or NYSE listing staff, and the SEC review run in parallel to qualification or effectiveness.
- The first day of trading — DTC and transfer agent coordination, the opening trade, and the transition into life as a reporting company: calendars, governance routines, and investor communication.
- Capital alongside the listing — where new capital is part of the plan, the listing is paired with a Regulation A+ or registered offering, with Reg D and Reg S tracks sequenced around it.
Choosing the exchange
| Consideration | NASDAQ | NYSE |
|---|---|---|
| Tiers | Capital Market, Global Market, Global Select | NYSE, NYSE American |
| Typical fit | Growth and technology issuers; broadest set of quantitative tiers | Larger floats; the primary direct floor listing benchmark is $100M public float value |
| Price standard | $4.00 minimum bid (typical) | $4.00 minimum |
| Governance | Independent board majority, audit committee, NASDAQ rules | NYSE Listed Company Manual standards |
Standards are tier-specific and change; every engagement begins with a requirements analysis against the current rulebooks.
For international issuers
For a company headquartered outside the United States, the listing standards are the visible half of the work. The invisible half is getting the company to the starting line: a holding structure the SEC and the exchange can accept, audited financials under acceptable standards, governance that satisfies exchange rules, and home-jurisdiction approvals completed in the right order. That structuring is the work of the firm’s second segment — the cross-border law practice — and it is why international issuers engage Adamson Brothers rather than an advisory firm and a law firm separately.
The engagement
Every engagement starts with a confidential conversation and produces, first, a written readiness assessment — including, where it is the honest answer, “not yet, and here is what would change that.” Fees are scoped to the mandate and agreed in writing before work begins. See the FAQ for the questions issuers ask most.
Begin with a confidential readiness conversation: contact the firm · info@directlylisted.com · WhatsApp +1 949-529-2500