Emergisoft's CEO and chairman Ash R. Huzenlaub says moving from a public to private company will help return its focus on products and customers.

"It's better to be a good private company and grow through cash flow," Huzenlaub said after announcing Emergisoft would voluntarily terminate the registration of its common stock. The move makes it easier for the company to stay on task and to concentrate on core competencies.

The time and money associated with regulatory filings and Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance, in part, drove the decision to go private, Huzenlaub said.

Since passage of Sarbanes-Oxley, the number of proposed buyouts involving the management team as the method to go private has increased about 80 percent, according to analysts at Chicago-based Grant Thornton International, an accounting, tax and business advisory company that specializes in mid-size companies around the world. "Companies that are not being recognized in the public markets are seeking to go private through buyouts in greater numbers," said Ian Cookson, a director with Grant Thornton.

Emergisoft lost $3.4 million in the first nine months of 2003; it lost $4.7 million over the same period in 2002.