One of the community files that has fallen on the table of the Ministry of Economic Affairs for its promotion during the Spanish presidency of the European Union in the second half of the year is the one known as the Listing Act, the new European regulation to revive IPOs .
The rule reduces the deadlines for public offerings for the sale of shares (OPV) and includes measures such as a simplification of the cumbersome exit brochures, which are usually a headache for companies. If approved, the prospectus will be limited to 300 pages, which, despite its length, means reducing the current ones by more than half. For a company, this measure will lead to significant savings in consultants and professional services.
The community regulation includes more measures and is the most ambitious in order to encourage the stock markets with the arrival of new companies. It is not the only initiative, because the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) has been working on different formulas from Spain, including the one that for two years now has exempted listed companies from offering quarterly information.
The new Securities Market Law, recently approved by Congress, already reduces issuance prospectuses for fixed-income securities such as corporate bonds and also incorporates the figure of SPACs into the Spanish regulations, which have been very fashionable in USA. A SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) is a formula for fast-track listing in which an empty company is taken public with the aim of merging it with a traditional company, which is automatically left integrated into the parquet. The Catalan company Wallbox is listed in New York thanks to a SPAC.
CNMV sources indicate that the supervisor is highly committed to reducing bureaucratic burdens and the amount of information that is required from listed companies, without harming the rights of shareholders to be aware of their investments.
The body chaired by Rodrigo Buenaventura has also proposed a reduction in the rates charged to companies for jumping onto the parquet. The CNMV has a surplus of 12 million euros that goes to the Treasury and considers that these amounts would have a more effective use if they served to reduce the burden on companies.
One of the arguments repeated by the CNMV is that the energy transition and the digitization of the economy will require investments of close to 300,000 million euros and that of this amount the banks can barely contribute 100,000 million. The rest of the financing must come from different sources, and one of them must be the stock markets, where shareholders can invest in business projects.
At the European level, there is also a proposal for a directive known as Debra (premium for the reduction of bias in favor of indebtedness) whose objective is to equate the tax burden of market operations to that of interest on bank debt.
The president of the CNMV has emphasized in his recent speeches the need for "more listed companies" and has requested that unlisted companies also be required to provide information related to aspects such as financial information on sustainability so that they do not have an advantage over the that are in the bag
In relation to listed companies, the Government has just promoted the Parity Law, which requires them to have a minimum of 40% women on the boards of directors.
