Ticker Talk

The Securities and Exchange Commission may require companies to open their presentations about initial public offerings to individual investors, SEC Commissioner Laura S. Unger said Wednesday. The staff is preparing a plan for submission to the commission in March or April that would widen the audience for companies’ pre-IPO promotional presentations, called “roadshows,” Unger said. These presentations typically are restricted to analysts and institutional investors. “It would try to provide a level playing field in terms of providing access to investors for important information,” Unger said. The SEC’s corporation-finance staff hasn’t worked out how companies would give individual investors access to roadshows, but one way would be to broadcast them on the Internet, she said. . . . Fidelity Investments said Wednesday that one of its hottest managers, Andrew Kaplan, who most recently oversaw the company’s Select Technology and Developing Communications funds, is resigning. Kaplan will be replaced at the tech fund by Lawrence Rakers, who manages other Fidelity funds. The $3.6-billion Select Technology portfolio has risen 130% in the last 12 months. Fidelity said analyst Rajiv Kaul will take over the $1.6-billion Developing Communications fund, which gained 122% in the last 12 months. . . . Chase Manhattan Corp. might issue a separate stock to track the performance of its growing venture capital investments, in an effort to boost lagging shareholder returns. Executives at the second-largest U.S. bank said its Chase Capital Partners unit, which has stakes in start-ups such as Internet firm StarMedia Network Inc. and wireless phone company Triton PCS Holdings, could have a market value of as much as $31 billion. Chase itself has a market value of about $70 billion. Chase shares fell $2.38 to $82.69 on the New York Stock Exchange.