Going Public. CFO.com reports that recent business scandals and new compliance regulations cause companies to think twice before going public. The cost of going public is much greater than ever before, compounded by the observation that shareholders may not have the influence needed to gain management's attention to keep the business on the straight and narrow.

As Andrew Carnegie once said, "Anybody's business can become nobody's business" with public ownership. Today even sophisticated institutional shareholders find themselves at a loss to explain the apparent ineptitude or even criminality of once lionized executives and the evaporation of value in once feted companies.