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Bursa Malaysia Berhad (“Bursa Malaysia” or the “the Exchange”) today announced the issuance of various amendments to the Main Market and ACE Market Listing Requirements (collectively the “LR”) which is predicated on the two main thrusts of facilitating a balance between promoting business efficacy and enhancing market quality. Through this exercise, the Exchange continues to strengthen investor protection and improve business efficiency via a balanced and appropriate regulatory framework.
According to Bursa Malaysia Chief Executive Officer, Dato’ Tajuddin Atan, “The Malaysian market has continued to mature and amongst the proof points are the improved corporate governance and better compliance culture by our listed issuers. As such, Bursa Malaysia believes it is timely to liberalise some of our listing requirements, to ease compliance by listed issuers, where appropriate and enhance the Exchange’s position as a conducive listing and capital raising destination. At the same time, we continue to uphold the principles of investor protection and high standards of conduct of listed issuers.”
The key amendments to the LR include:
I. liberalising the related party transaction (“RPT”) requirements by dispensing with compliance requirements in instances where the risk of abuse by a related party is low or theoretical in nature;
II. enhancing the quality and investibility of listed issuers through the enhanced regularisation plans for financially distressed listed issuers;
III. facilitating regularisation of listed issuers with inadequate level of operations via a separate framework;
IV. strengthening investor protection and promoting greater transparency through various enhancements to the foreign listing requirements;
V. improving transparency in the governance structure of listed issuers with foreign principal subsidiaries by requiring immediate announcement of change in legal representative;
VI. addressing the concerns raised by listed issuers by removing Practice Note 1/Guidance Note 5 of the LR relating to announcement of default in payment and incorporating such obligation as a specific requirement under a new paragraph/Rule 9.19A instead; and
VII. improving market efficiency and providing greater clarity through, among others, facilitating speedier issuance and listing of structured warrants pending the listing of the underlying financial instrument and dispensing with the listed issuer’s shareholder approval in an employee share scheme implemented by its subsidiary and allowing provision of financial assistance to joint arrangements.
The amendments will take effect from 27 January 2015 onwards with certain enhancements to the foreign listing requirements coming into effect on 1 July 2015. The amendments to the LR were made after incorporating industry feedback received by the Exchange pursuant to a public consultation paper published on 10 January 2014.
For more information on the LR amendments and their effective dates, please visit Bursa Malaysia’s website at www.bursamalaysia.com.
