(News Bulletin 247) – The policeman of the Paris Stock Exchange is relaxing the rules regarding IPOs, by lifting the obligation for companies wishing to join the Parisian market to reserve part of their shares for individual investors.

The president of the Financial Markets Authority (AMF) Marie-Anne Barbat Layani announced on Tuesday the lifting of the obligation for companies to reserve a portion of their shares for individual investors during an IPO.

Invited to speak at the twelfth annual conference of Euronext, she declared that “the AMF college has decided to modify the general regulations of the AMF to remove the obligation to have a tranche reserved for investors individuals when there is an IPO”.

From obligation to option

This obligation specific to France, which is now only an option, aimed to reserve for individuals a minimum share of 10% of what was placed on the market. “We immediately proposed this modification to the general regulation for approval by the Minister of Finance,” she added.

When the option is used, the AMF will ask to “ensure that the allocations are fair between individual investors and other categories of investors”, specified the president of the AMF.

It is a “very concrete example of what we are doing in the context which today is that of a search for attractiveness for the Paris market”, welcomed Marie-Anne Barbat Layani.

Restore attractiveness

While the European financial center is in turmoil around the possible creation of a single capital market between the 27 EU countries, France wants to increase investor interest in its financial center.

“France is putting on the table measures in favor of the attractiveness of the Paris market and for me” it is “intrinsically linked” to the establishment of a capital markets union, explained the president of the AMF. “Firstly because Paris is the leading European financial center, but also, by far, the leading financial center in the euro zone,” she added.

(With AFP)