March 2009

Response to the European Commission’s consultation on the review of the Prospectus Directive(Directive 2003/71/EC)

The Exchange has responded to the European Commission’s consultation on the review of the Prospectus Directive (PD). The Exchange welcomes the work undertaken by the Commission to reduce administrative burdens on issuers but thinks a number of improvements could still be made to simplify the application of the PD, particularly for small companies and pre-emptive offers.

Specifically, the Exchange believes that:

• the threshold for the exemption for offers with a total consideration below €2.5 million is too low (this threshold should be raised to offers with a total consideration up to €10 million at least); the exemptions
• under Article 4 should be extended to include rights issues, particularly where the issuer is already admitted to a Regulated Market or Multilateral Trading Facility;
• this exemption should be extended to other pre-emptive offers of securities to existing members, particularly open offers.

In preparing this response, the Exchange has consulted with a significant number of market participants who deal with and advise a range of companies on both AIM and the Main Market.

Downloads