More companies are going private to avoid headaches of stricter governance rules and quarterly reviews by Wall Street

After 45 years in accounting for public companies, Sonny Durham is relieved he now works for a private concern.

Durham, former chief financial officer of Sunair Electronics, put together the transaction that took private the once publicly held radio communications business with headquarters in Fort Lauderdale. “I was personally glad for the opportunity to get out of the public arena. For a small business, it was becoming very demanding,” he said.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the post-Enron law that placed new auditing and governance requirements on companies, has been blamed for many departures from the public market. At Sunair, for example, a tightening budget made it more difficult to add the staff needed to comply with federal reporting requirements, said Durham, who is part of the management team that took the business private.

[1] Sun-Sentinel: A timely exit for many publicly held companies