Key Investment Insights for UK Enterprises

As a result of the intro of the UKLR sourcebook in July 2024, both the London Stock Market (LSE) and FTSE Russell made substantial changes to their guidelines. In July 2024, the LSE confirmed changes to its Admission and Disclosure Standards to reflect the collapse of the previous premium and standard listing sections into the new commercial business classification.

It then provided a summary and Frequently asked questions confirming its view when the last UKLR sourcebook was released in July 2024. Among the procedures proposed as part of the Edinburgh Reforms in December 2022 was the facility of the Accelerated Settlement Taskforce, chaired by Charlie Geffen. The goal of the taskforce was to think about the possible advantages of the UK moving to a T +1 securities settlement cycle and detail how this change might be carried out.

On 19 February 2025, the UK federal government revealed it accepted the recommendation and the UK market plans to move to a T +1 settlement cycle on 11 October 2027. One of the recommendations from the UK Secondary Capital Raising Evaluation led to the facility in July 2022 of the Digitisation Taskforce, chaired by Sir Douglas Flint.

Professional Analysis of UK Global Markets

In July 2023, the taskforce published an Interim Report (read our summary here) which made a number of recommendations, consisting of: legislation ought to be advanced, and business short articles of association changed, as quickly as practicable to stop the issuance of new paper share certificates; the federal government should advance legislation to need dematerialisation of all share certificates at a future date; the federal government needs to talk to provider and financier representatives on the preferred disposition of "recurring" paper share interests and whether a time frame should be imposed for the identification of untraced Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs); andintermediaries must have a responsibility, as a condition of involvement in the clearing and settlement system, to put in location typical innovation that allows them to react to UBO demands from companies within a really brief time frame.

ANSR July UK PRs

Digitisation would target listed companies with a view to reducing costs and waste, and simplifying shareholder interaction. The report proposes additional measures to ensure that UBOs within the intermediated securities chain would have the ability to exercise investor rights that are presently only ensured for registered shareholders, as well as procedures to boost interaction between companies and UBOs.