Public Listing
Listing means the admission of the company's shares for public trading at a stock exchange. Listing, or a so-called initial public offering, “IPO”, is usually carried out by issuing new shares or selling existing shares in the company, in order to expand the company's ownership base and to obtaining additional financing. In addition to responding to the financing needs of the company seeking listing, the goal is often to increase liquidity of the shares and, consequently, shareholder value.
In addition to the Companies Act, the provisions of the Securities Market Act as well as the rules and regulations of the stock exchange arranging the listing and the financial supervisory authority (in Finland, the Financial Supervisory Authority, FiVa) apply to listed companies. In Finland, NASDAQ OMX Helsinki Oy operates a regulated stock exchange market.
Regulation applicable to listed companies and market surveillance can be divided into, among others, following areas:
disclosure regulation, which aims to ensure that investors have access to adequate and relevant information regarding listed companies and the traded securities;
regulation of financial statements, designed to ensure that the available financial information regarding listed companies is both comparable and adequate. Listed companies must comply with the International Financial Reporting Standards, IFRS, in their accounting;
insider trading enforcement, seeking to prevent abuse of inside information in securities markets, thereby promoting market integrity.
An alternative marketplace can be an alternative to listing the shares on a regulated market, with less onerous administrative and legal requirements, for example relating to company disclosures, than on a traditional regulated stock exchange. Such alternative markets include, for example, First North, which in Finland is operated by NASDAQ OMX Helsinki Oy, and the Alternative Investment Market, AIM, operated by the London Stock Exchange.