Leveraging Corporate Funding for Mid-Market Firms

As an outcome of the introduction of the UKLR sourcebook in July 2024, both the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and FTSE Russell made consequential modifications to their rules. In July 2024, the LSE confirmed amendments to its Admission and Disclosure Standards to reflect the collapse of the previous premium and standard listing sections into the brand-new industrial company classification.

, chaired by Charlie Geffen. The objective of the taskforce was to think about the potential benefits of the UK moving to a T +1 securities settlement cycle and outline how this change could be implemented.

On 19 February 2025, the UK government announced it accepted the suggestion and the UK market intends to relocate to a T +1 settlement cycle on 11 October 2027. One of the suggestions from the UK Secondary Capital Raising Review caused the establishment in July 2022 of the Digitisation Taskforce, chaired by Sir Douglas Flint.

Optimizing UK Workforce Strategies in 2026

In July 2023, the taskforce published an Interim Report (read our summary here) that made a number of suggestions, consisting of: legislation must be brought forward, and business posts of association changed, as quickly as practicable to stop the issuance of brand-new paper share certificates; the government must advance legislation to need dematerialisation of all share certificates at a future date; the government should speak with company and financier representatives on the favored disposition of "recurring" paper share interests and whether a time limitation ought to be imposed for the identification of untraced Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs); andintermediaries ought to have a commitment, as a condition of involvement in the cleaning and settlement system, to put in location common technology that allows them to respond to UBO demands from providers within an extremely short time frame.

ANSR July UK PRs

Digitisation would target listed companies with a view to minimizing costs and waste, and streamlining shareholder interaction. The report proposes extra measures to make sure that UBOs within the intermediated securities chain would be able to work out investor rights that are presently only guaranteed for registered investors, along with steps to improve interaction in between business and UBOs.