"We're delighted to have Wool Equities take the number one position in the NZAX First XV," said Geoff Brown, NZX Markets Development Manager. "They're not only the first company to successfully apply for listing on the new market but, due to their defined shareholder group, the first Non Standard NZAX Listing and a prime example of the type of company that's ideally suited to this sort of market structure."
Mark O'Grady, Wool Equities Limited CEO, said that Wool Equities was attracted to the NZAX because it had all the tradeability benefits of the NZSX, but with a more flexible structure that suited their particular circumstances. "Wool Equities has a unique ownership structure that we have to preserve while at the same time trying to provide greater liquidity and price transparency for our shareholders."
"The NZAX offers us and our 12,000 or more shareholders the opportunity to drive liquidity in our stock and the ability to raise additional capital for our four investment companies - Ovita, Canesis, Keratec and Tectra," said O'Grady.
The NZAX Market has been designed and built specifically for small-medium sized companies to offer a cost-effective and efficient means of capital raising, as well as an ideal vehicle for capturing price discovery.
"We were very conscious in designing the microstructure of the NZAX that New Zealand has many companies with fairly unique ownership structures who have similar capital raising and price discovery needs as standard organisations. We wanted to provide enough flexibility for all types of companies to grow by getting access to capital in a cheap and easy format," said Brown.
The NZAX will open for trading on Friday November 14, pending approval of the NZAX Listing Rules by Lianne Dalzeil, the Minister of Commerce. NZX has recently approved the accreditation of 10 NZX Sponsors who will be able to bring companies to market.
