Sarbanes-Oxley Brings U.S. Firms IPO Earnings Abroad

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- For all the hand-wringing over the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the accounting and governance law driving companies away from U.S. stock exchanges, America's biggest securities firms are doing a record overseas business arranging initial public offerings.
The surge in IPOs from London to Hong Kong has enabled New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. to collect $1.33 billion of fees from new share sales outside the U.S. so far in 2006, a third more than in any prior year, data compiled by Bloomberg show.