Here's the check. Now, don't worry so much about the rest.

Nasdaq is planning to launch a trading platform-The Portal Market-this summer for shares issued in 144A private placements.

"Right now, you can sell these through a specialized dealer, but you don't know the last price," Bob Greifeld, Nasdaq president and chief executive, told energy and other executives at a Houston Petroleum Club program recently, co-sponsored by Oil and Gas Investor.

The platform will be private, since only QIBs ("quibs" or qualified institutional buyers) are allowed by buy and hold shares issued in 144A placements, he added. However, the platform will be transparent, such as showing the last price.

Mike Rosinski, chief financial officer of Nasdaq-listed Rosetta Resources Inc., says a transparent trading platform for 144A shares could help soften the pressure to eventually publicly list the stock.

But owners of the 144A shares will still want the stock publicly listed. "It's not a destination exchange," Rosinski says. "It's an intermediate exchange."

There are a limited number of QIBs, so trading 144A shares among only QIBs is not as broad a field as trading them among all buyers and sellers who have access to stocks traded on public exchanges, he adds.

Rosetta used the 144A stock-sale vehicle in the summer of 2005 to raise some $800 million in equity (it raised an additional $300 million in debt) to buy its initial asset package from Calpine Corp. Rosetta founders, who ran the E&P business of Calpine, were given only eight or so weeks to raise the money to close the deal.

The 144A private placement allows stock issuance prior to an IPO with the promise that the shares will begin trading publicly within 180 and 270 days. The six- to nine-month period is used to clear SEC and other hurdles to become a publicly listed stock.

E&P and service-company executives have used the 144A in the past to take advantage of large deal opportunities or to capture current market value for energy stocks. The traditional IPO route might have the stock pricing six or more months later when investor interest in energy stocks could be softer.

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