Professional Review of Mid-Market Capital Markets

As an outcome of the intro of the UKLR sourcebook in July 2024, both the London Stock Market (LSE) and FTSE Russell made consequential modifications to their guidelines. In July 2024, the LSE verified amendments to its Admission and Disclosure Standards to show the collapse of the previous premium and basic listing sections into the new business company classification.

It then released a summary and FAQs validating its view when the final UKLR sourcebook was released in July 2024. One of the steps proposed as part of the Edinburgh Reforms in December 2022 was the facility of the Accelerated Settlement Taskforce, chaired by Charlie Geffen. The objective of the taskforce was to consider the potential benefits of the UK moving to a T +1 securities settlement cycle and outline how this change might be implemented.

On 19 February 2025, the UK federal government announced it accepted the suggestion and the UK market plans to move to a T +1 settlement cycle on 11 October 2027. One of the recommendations from the UK Secondary Capital Raising Evaluation resulted in the facility in July 2022 of the Digitisation Taskforce, chaired by Sir Douglas Flint.

Future-Proofing Mid-Market Talent Strategies in 2026

In July 2023, the taskforce published an Interim Report (read our summary here) that made a variety of suggestions, consisting of: legislation should be brought forward, and company posts of association changed, as quickly as practicable to stop the issuance of new paper share certificates; the government should bring forward legislation to require dematerialisation of all share certificates at a future date; the federal government needs to seek advice from company and investor agents on the preferred personality of "recurring" paper share interests and whether a time frame should be imposed for the recognition of untraced Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs); andintermediaries should have an obligation, as a condition of involvement in the cleaning and settlement system, to put in location typical technology that enables them to react to UBO requests from providers within an extremely short time frame.

ANSR July UK PRs

Digitisation would target noted business with a view to lowering costs and waste, and streamlining shareholder interaction. The report proposes extra steps to make sure that UBOs within the intermediated securities chain would be able to exercise shareholder rights that are presently just ensured for registered investors, along with procedures to enhance communication between companies and UBOs.