Recently the law firm of Foley & Lardner LLP released the results of its study, titled "The Cost of Being Public In The Era of Sarbanes-Oxley."
The study was designed to measure attitudes toward current corporate governance reform among top executives, as well as a comprehensive review of proxy statements filed in 2005 by certain S&P Small-Cap, S&P Mid-Cap and S&P 500 companies. Among the study's findings:

• The average cost of being public in 2004 for a company with annual revenue of less than $1 billion was $3.42 million, which represented a 33 percent increase over 2003 costs and a 223 percent increase since the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley.

• In 2004, the average cost of being a public company with annual revenue of more than $1 billion was $14.24 million, a 45 percent increase over 2003 costs.

• A vast majority (82 percent) of respondents felt that corporate governance and public disclosure reforms are too strict, an increase of 15 percent compared to the 2004 survey.

A copy of the study is available on the Foley & Lardner under "Latest News":

http://www.foley.com