Prescienti · Approach

Every issuer has a different business, shareholder base, capital structure, and objective — so we don't run generic programs. Each mandate is built around your specific gap: the distance between what the company is and how the market currently reads it.

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Lounge, The Wall Street Hotel, 88 Wall Street, Financial District.

Diagnose. We assess the business, the strategy, who owns you today, your materials, your visibility and liquidity, your peer context — and what investors currently hear. No prescriptions before diagnosis.

Clarify. We define the investor thesis, the messaging hierarchy, the peer frame, the proof points — and the hard questions management must be ready to answer.

Build. We create the materials, website content, presentations, and engagement plan the mandate requires.

Engage. We support investor education, shareholder communications, non-deal roadshows, conferences, and webinars — inside the regulatory lines, always.

Refine. We use investor feedback, analytics, and company milestones to sharpen the program, so the market's picture keeps pace as the business executes.

What the First 90 Days Look Like

Weeks 1–3 — the diagnostic. We review your materials, shareholder register, trading and visibility profile, peer set, and what ten minutes of searching says about you — then present a written readout to management or the board. Most mandates begin here, as a fixed-scope diagnostic, so you can see how we think before committing to a program.

Weeks 4–8 — the build. Investor thesis, messaging hierarchy, peer frame, and the priority materials — typically the presentation and the IR pages — rebuilt around it.

Weeks 9–12 — the market. Updated materials go live, the disclosure rhythm starts, and the first investor engagements are scheduled — with a quarterly scorecard covering visibility, engagement, and ownership indicators, so the board sees progress in numbers, not anecdotes.

Engagement Models

Strategic advisory mandates, ongoing retainers, defined projects, embedded executive or board appointments, and integrated multi-service engagements. Scope and compensation are documented for every engagement and set up to meet applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

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We tell clients to bring evidence, not adjectives. Here's ours.

The FPI universe is large — and growing again

967 Foreign Private Issuers filed annual reports on Form 20-F in fiscal 2023, up from a low of 656 in 2016. Foreign-based companies now make up roughly 27% of all U.S. exchange listings, up from about 17% in 2016.

Source: SEC DERA, Trends in the Foreign Private Issuer Population 2003–2023 (Dec. 2024, rev. May 2025); SEC Concept Release No. 33-11376 (June 4, 2025); NERA data reported by Cooley LLP (Oct. 2025).

Most FPIs now depend heavily on U.S. markets

Of the 943 Form 20-F issuers with usable trading data in fiscal 2023, 76% had more than half of their global trading volume in U.S. markets. Fifty-five percent conducted at least 99% of their trading in U.S. markets.

Source: SEC Concept Release No. 33-11376 (June 4, 2025), based on the staff's FPI Trends White Paper. Trading percentages use the 943 issuers with usable data.

The FPIs most dependent on U.S. markets are disproportionately smaller

FPIs conducting at least 99% of their trading in the U.S. represented approximately 55% of issuers, but only 9.2% of aggregate FPI market capitalization. By contrast, the 24.2% of FPIs with less than half of their trading in the U.S. represented 66.3% of aggregate market capitalization.

Source: SEC Concept Release No. 33-11376 (June 4, 2025), Figure 5 and accompanying analysis.

Smaller companies live in a coverage desert

Small caps average about six covering analysts. Mid caps get seventeen; large caps, thirty. Many companies below $1 billion have no coverage at all. And analysts generally won't initiate on a stock their clients can't trade in size — which makes liquidity a precondition for visibility, not a result of it.

Source: Bank of America / FactSet data cited by Osterweis Capital Management; Grid Oasis (2026); Small-Cap Institute on liquidity as a prerequisite for coverage.

Being understood is worth real money — the research says so

Foreign companies listed in the U.S. have historically been valued well above comparable home-market peers — a 16.5% premium in the foundational study — a gap researchers tie to stronger investor protection, disclosure, and visibility. Cross-listing is also associated with more analyst coverage, more media attention, and better liquidity. But the premium goes to companies the market can actually see. A ticker alone earns nothing. And the closing link: when smaller companies add professional investor relations, research finds media coverage, analyst following, institutional ownership, and valuation all rise — evidence that the work, not just the listing, is what the market rewards.

Source: Doidge, Karolyi & Stulz, Journal of Financial Economics 71 (2004); Bushee & Miller, The Accounting Review 87 (2012); Lang, Lins & Miller, Journal of Accounting Research 41 (2003); Baker, Nofsinger & Weaver, JFQA 37 (2002); Foerster & Karolyi, Journal of Finance 54 (1999).

The audience has changed — and so has the scrutiny

Individual investors now drive roughly 20–25% of daily U.S. equity volume, about double their share a decade ago — and direct stock ownership just posted its largest jump on record, rising from 15% to 21% of U.S. families. Your message has to work for professionals and individuals alike. The SEC is reviewing the FPI eligibility framework. Separately, Section 16(a) insider-reporting requirements took effect in March 2026 for directors and officers of FPIs with Section 12-registered equity securities, subject to specified exemptions. Credible issuers have an opportunity to distinguish themselves through clear disclosure and early preparation for regulatory change.

Source: JPMorgan / Jefferies estimates via Reuters (2025); Federal Reserve, 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances (Oct. 2023); SEC Concept Release No. 33-11376 (June 4, 2025); SEC, Holding Foreign Insiders Accountable Act final rules (Feb. 27, 2026) and exemptive guidance (updated May 20, 2026).

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Illustrative composites — not Prescienti client case studies. These are anonymized versions of situations common among FPIs, shown to explain how our work applies. No outcome is promised or implied.

The invisible operator

A European industrial FPI — real revenue, positive cash flow, a defensible niche — trades a few thousand shares a day at a fraction of its U.S. peers' multiples. No analyst has ever covered it. Its investor page is a filing archive. The work: build the investor thesis and peer frame, rebuild the materials and IR pages, establish a consistent disclosure rhythm, and put management in front of the right audiences through non-deal roadshows and conferences.

The mistranslated story

An Asia-based technology FPI is still filed under “hardware” in the market's head, even though most of its revenue is now recurring software. The valuation reflects the old business. The work: reposition the category, restate the model in the language U.S. investors use for software, re-cut the peer set, and re-educate the market milestone by milestone.

The uplist candidate

A Latin American issuer heading for a senior exchange has met the technical requirements — but has no U.S. story, no institutional-grade presentation, and a management team that has never faced a U.S. investor Q&A. The work: readiness review, narrative and materials build, management preparation, and coordination with counsel, auditors, and a registered broker-dealer where regulated advice is required — all before the first investor meeting, not after.

Twenty questions. Twenty minutes. A clear view of how your company looks to a U.S. investor — message, materials, disclosure, visibility, liquidity, governance — before anyone is asked to believe anything. Free, and the fastest way to see your company the way the market does.

Get the Checklist

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Lobby, 63–67 Wall Street, Financial District.

This page exists because officials, regulators, and exchange staff sometimes need a quick, straight answer to two questions: who is Prescienti, and what exactly does it do? Here are both — including what we don't do.

Who we are

Prescienti is the trade name of Prescienti Partners Inc., an Ontario corporation. We provide capital markets advisory, investor relations, strategic communications, market intelligence, and related consulting services to Foreign Private Issuers and their boards. Our partners' backgrounds span public-company operations and directorships, securities regulation and compliance (including establishing and licensing regulated entities in the U.S. and Canada), brand and communications, and structured transaction diligence.

Our role — and its boundaries

We are advisory and preparatory. We help issuers analyze, prepare, organize, and communicate.
We are not a broker-dealer, placement agent, securities solicitor, underwriter, or investment adviser, and we do not hold ourselves out as any of these. We do not solicit or place securities, execute financings, or accept transaction-based compensation for unlicensed securities activity.
Where a client mandate requires regulated activity, licensed or registered parties perform it. Our role is preparation and coordination, defined in a written engagement agreement developed with legal counsel.
We are not a stock promotion firm. We publish no paid promotional content about issuers, and we do not accept success fees or transaction-based compensation for unlicensed securities activity. Where any part of an engagement is compensated in client equity, it is disclosed, board-approved, documented in the engagement agreement, and subject to applicable holding restrictions.

Standards we work to

Independence: our analysis is prepared for the client's board and management, not for market distribution — and we tell clients what the evidence shows, including when the problem is the business, not the telling.
Diligence: our capital advisory work follows documented methodologies — red-flag review, feasibility and viability analysis, valuation support, risk assessment — with sources and assumptions stated.
Counsel coordination: investor-facing content we prepare is developed for review by the issuer's securities counsel, and our own scope is documented in each engagement agreement.
Disclosure first: we counsel clients that credibility with regulators and investors is built on accurate, consistent disclosure — and that the authoritative record is the issuer's SEC filings.

Education and convening

We convene educational programs for FPI boards and management on U.S. market readiness, disclosure, governance, and investor engagement. Public-sector and exchange professionals are welcome as speakers and participants where appropriate. Program content is educational and does not concern specific securities.

Contact

Government, regulatory, or exchange inquiries: info@prescienti.com | 416.809.7521 | Prescienti Partners Inc., 1 Yonge Street, Suite 1801, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E5, Canada.

Approach