SecondMarket CEO Barry Silbert on why his exchange’s popularity is a secular shift in investing How active can a secondary exchange for private company shares be when the IPO market opens up? In January, Tesla Motors, which filed for an IPO this year, accounted for 29% of the completed transactions on SecondMarket, the leading exchange to trade private company shares. The prospect of a near-term liquidity event was likely a contributing factor to the activity, according to SecondMarket. But in February, the activity died down. Perhaps for the very same reason — an imminent IPO. Despite a sluggish start to the year, IPO's are still expected to make a comeback in 2010, creating new growth  opportunities for hungry public investors sure to gobble them up. But what does that do to the activity on SecondMarket?"When ...   [ Read more ]