Man If I could be paid a buck for everytime I had to correct you:
A merger with a Shell gets you technically Public, but nothing more. You end with a few hundred shareholders, not enough to create a bona fide public “market”. Auditors and attorneys are typically very small firms or individuals, and the financial community that makes the difference isn’t going to take the company seriously. It leaves the company on the lowest rung of the Public Company ladder. Reverse Mergers with shells are what people have in mind when they dismiss Reverse Mergers as shady, suspect or quasi-legitimate transactions.
A variation of a Public Shell is a Public Company that recently divested all its business in an asset sale but has a clean unbroken history of audits, filings and stock ownership as well as reputable attorneys and accountants who were involved. Technically it may be a Public Shell, but if the divestiture is recent, it is in a completely different category (and has been termed a “warm” shell).