Members of Burges Salmon’s Corporate team attended the capital markets reform update delivered by the Capital Markets Industry Task Force, hosted by the London Stock Exchange on 6 February 2025.

Among a wide variety of speakers, Dame Julia Hoggett and Mark Austin championed the huge progress that has been made since Lord Hill’s Listing Review Report in bringing about sweeping reforms to UK capital markets, emphasising that the UK Listing Rules were no longer perceived to be a barrier to listing in the UK. Dame Julia noted that further change was still needed in order to improve the UK “funding continuum” between private and public capital spheres, encourage the “risk capital flywheel” to turn and finish “fixing the pipes” in order that the taps could be turned back on. Dame Julia also celebrated the continuity and consensus between UK governments regarding the measures necessary to achieve this.

They issued a clarion call, meanwhile, for advisers and stakeholders to be ambassadors for UK capital markets, to resist cynicism and to challenge the negative public narrative which has surrounded them in recent years. They each emphasised that this narrative was anchored in outdated assumptions, bad data and a very British propensity to talk ourselves down. These entrenched myths, it was stressed, created the risk of self-fulfilling prophecies, or a “doom loop”, in an area in which popular sentiment and perception is so important.

Various speakers also highlighted the importance of AIM to both the past and future of UK and global capital markets. AIM was referred to as the “jewel in the crown”, the London Stock Exchange and Europe’s “growth market engine”, as well as a vital contributor to the UK economy. Dame Julia alluded to the fact that, now that the UK Listing Rules have been updated and new UK prospectus regime is taking greater shape, focus can shift to the ways in which the AIM Rules could also be refreshed.

Mark Austin provided an update in relation to the progress of London Stock Exchange’s innovative, indeed world-leading project, PISCES. This is set to be the world’s first regulated crossover market, which will enable private companies to host auctions of their shares periodically, without becoming subject to the Takeover Code or UK Listing Rules. The development of PISCES also forms part a broader initiative to reduce the cliff edges between different stages of financing in a company’s lifecycle, better enabling them to stay and scale in the UK.

At Burges Salmon, we are well placed to advise companies and their investors on each stage of the “funding continuum” to which Dame Julia referred. That includes those wishing to float on AIM for the first time, of which AOTI’s IPO, on which Burges Salmon advised and which, on completion in June 2024, was the largest AIM IPO since February 2022, is just one example.

If you would like to discuss UK Capital Markets Reform or PISCES and what it might mean for your company, please speak to your usual contact at Burges Salmon or AJ Venter, Guy Francis, Charlotte Hamilton or Nick Graves, head of the firm's Corporate Department.