FCA publishes discussion paper on the purpose of the UK listing regime

Following its consultation paper on the purpose of the UK listing regime (CP21/21) in July 2021, the FCA has now put forward for discussion its vision for a new single listing segment for equity shares of commercial companies (DP22/2).

The FCA considers its proposals to be a considerable change to the status quo. However, whilst DP 22/2 clearly makes a number of headline-grabbing suggestions including collapsing the premium and standard listing segments into one segment for equity shares of commercial companies, removing certain historical financial information eligibility requirements and increasing the threshold ratios for class 1 transactions – perhaps the most surprising aspect of DP 22/2 is that, once the dust settles, the new regime may not look too dissimilar from what came before albeit
with different branding.