Ask Dick Clark?. (Wall Street West).

So has the market really bottomed?

Maybe investors should turn to music host Dick Clark for the answer.

Burbank-based Dick Clark Productions, after years of lassitude on Wall Street, recently went private in a deal that took the company's shares off the Nasdaq.

When the pace of going private transactions quickens, it's sometimes a sign that Wall Street has gotten too bearish about prospects for small- and mid-cap fortunes, said Brooks Dexter, managing director with USBX Advisory Services Inc., boutique investment bankers in Santa Monica.

If public valuations sink low enough, private investors might snap up other such "orphan stocks." In a going-private transaction, shareholders will get a hefty premium -- often running between 25 and 33 percent over the trading price.

So far, there has not been a wave of these transactions, although Dexter says he is getting more inquiries about the strategy from public company chiefs. One problem is that banks are still chary of financing leveraged buyout transactions.

But Dexter thinks there's another reason some public companies wish to go private: "The liability of being a public company in this regulatory environment, and the cost of compliance, often outweighs the advantages of being public," he said.

Indeed, under a law signed last week by President Bush, chief executives are personally liable for reported audit numbers, even though the arcana of auditing can sometimes fog the sharpest intellect. "Being the head of a publicly traded company is no longer a fun thing," Dexter said.

Contributing columnist Benjamin Mark Cole writes about the local investment community for the Los Angeles Business Journal. He can be reached at [e-mail].