On 8 April 2020, the FCA announced a series of measures to help listed companies to raise new funding while retaining an appropriate degree of investor protection.

The package includes a combination of temporary policy interventions and reminders of some existing options for companies and their current and prospective shareholders.

These include:

• providing clarity on the FCA’s expectations about the due diligence supporting ‘working capital statements’ in share prospectuses given the significant economic uncertainties caused by coronavirus;
• the ability to apply to the FCA for waivers to ensure that shareholder approval can be sought for certain transactions without the need to hold a general meeting given government guidelines on social distancing;
• welcoming recent industry work on placings of new shares to agree sensible steps to balance the pre-emption rights of existing shareholders with the need for these transactions to be done as efficiently as possible given the economic environment; and
• encouraging eligible companies to make use of the new simplified prospectus, introduced by the Prospectus Regulation last year. These prospectuses, recognising that the investor base has access to a range of information already relating to the issuer, remove the need to include information such as organisational structure, capital resources, remuneration and benefits and board practices.