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Changes supporting NZX’s commitment to create a market structure and rule set that promotes market development, and assists in the listing of a broader range of financial products, officially came into effect today, following a six month transition period.
NZX completed the first holistic review of the market’s structure and rule set in 15 years in October 2018.
Benefits of these changes have already been witnessed with the first equity initial public offering under the updated framework taking place in June. This followed the listing of eight ETFs on 6 June 2019 under the new bespoke fund rules, designed to reduce the cost of listing for these issuers.
The wholesale debt market, which opened in January 2019, has had five listings totalling $1.47 billion, including the exchange’s first sustainability bond and first non-NZD denominated listed security.
NZX has introduced changes to make further capital raising easier for existing issuers. Total capital raised increased 58% to $5.8 billion in first five months of 2019. Secondary equity raisings have increased 9% over the same period.
NZX CEO Mark Peterson commented: “Our long term goal is to become a vibrant and diverse capital raising hub, not just an IPO centre. Changes to the updated market structure and rule set help to achieve this as we aim to increase access to a broad range of listed financial products for investors.”
“Thank you to the market, and our customers, who have supported these changes and worked hard to make the migration and transition process a success.”
Under the updated market structure NZX will operate one equity board and rule set. All NZAX and NXT issuers have migrated to the NZX main board.
The updated rules, which include an explanatory paper, can be found here.
