LONDON, July 19 Reuters There should be no need for a costly prospectus for most secondary fundraisings by companies, a governmentbacked review recommended on Tuesday as part of Britain39;s efforts to make its financial sector more globally attractive.
The review by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer lawyer Mark Austin said that materially raising the threshold at which a prospectus should be required for an admission to trading on markets would speed up secondary fundraising.
A prospectus is needed if a secondary raising is more than 20 of the existing share capital, but the review recommends raising this to 75 given that prospectuses are inherently duplicative of a company39;s existing market disclosure, the review said.
It recommends that companies, with prior shareholder approval, could issue up to 20 of their issued share capital without first giving the original shareholders a right of refusal, a step CMS law firm said would remove the need for a general meeting in most cases.
The current ceiling is 10, but was temporarily doubled at the height of the COVID19 pandemic39;s impact on markets in order to help companies tap funds to stay in business without a time consuming rights issue.
Transitional measures could be put in place to allow immediate use of the reformed preemptive rights regime ahead of a companys next annual meeting, the review said.
Peel Hunt, a bank, said the changes would embed a far greater nimbleness into capital markets and put Britain on a more…