The Directorate of the MICEX Stock Exchange has adopted the Statute of accreditation of listing agents. These are organizations helping issuers to prepare documents which they need to join the Exchange’s Sector for Innovation and Growth Companies (IGC). As of 1 December 2006, professional market participants and consulting firms will be able to apply to the MICEX Stock Exchange for accreditation as listing agents. Trading in the Exchange’s Sector for Innovation and Growth Companies may start in the first quarter of 2007.
The institution of listing agents has been created to improve the transparency of the Sector’s companies. The adopted Statute defines listing agent as an organization which meets the requirements set by the MICEX SE’s Directorate, has contracted to prepare for an issuer (management company) a set of documents necessary for the admission of securities to placement and trading in the MICEX SE’s IGC Sector and performs some additional functions, such as providing financial consulting or securing the disclosure of information by the issuer when maintaining the issuer’s security in the IGC Sector.
According to Alexei Rybnikov, CEO of the MICEX Stock Exchange SE, “the institution of listing agents is expected to provide the appropriate protection of investors’ rights and minimize the risk of dissemination of unreliable information.”
An organization wishing to act as listing agent must meet the following requirements:- it must be a legal entity established in compliance with the RF law;
- it must have experience in bringing issuers to the stock market (corporate financing; IPOs; management, legal, taxation and auditing consulting; assistance in PR events and marketing of financial products; provision of analytical services to the issuer).
- preparation, in compliance with the listing rules, of a set of documents which the issuer needs to apply for the admission of securities to placement; preparation of the application to admit securities to trading with or without listing;
- signing the investment memorandum and the corporate calendar, which the issuer submits when having its securities admitted to trading on the MICEX SE and maintained in the Sector for Innovation and Growth Companies. Requirements for the issuer’s investment memorandum and corporate calendar are adopted by the Directorate of the MICEX SE.
Listing agents are accredited for a period of 1 year, which can then be extended.
The MICEX Stock Exchange keeps an electronic register of accredited organizations, which contains information on all accredited organizations, details about the extension of accreditations (refusal to extend an accreditation) or the early termination of an accreditation. The register of accredited organizations is published on the MICEX SE’s web site.
The MICEX Stock Exchange’s Listing Department begins to accept applications to accredit companies as listing agents as of 01 December 2006 (telephone: +7(495)2344816).
