Success: Prospectus-free rights capital increases of up to 8 million euros possible

Large success for KMU inte­rest fede­ra­tion / BMF pres­ents draft bill for the change of the folder right.
The merger of the capi­tal market-orien­­ted SME sector is paying off. In Septem­ber, the Capi­tal Market SME Inte­rest Group submit­ted a peti­tion to amend the pros­pec­tus law to the Fede­ral Minis­try of Finance (BMF). 100 capi­tal market-orien­­ted compa­nies supported the peti­tion. The BMF has now reac­ted at short notice to the criti­cism from SMEs and presen­ted a draft bill for a new law. Main content: Pros­­pec­­tus-free rights issues of up to EUR 8 million will be possible.

The Act on the Exer­cise of Opti­ons under the EU Pros­pec­tus Regu­la­tion and on the Adapt­a­tion of Other Finan­cial Market Laws, which came into force on July 21, 2018 and, among other things, provi­des for pros­­pec­­tus-free public offe­rings of up to EUR 8 million, preven­ted pros­­pec­­tus-free rights capi­tal increa­ses by regu­la­ting indi­vi­dual invest­ment thres­holds for non-quali­­fied inves­tors. The indi­vi­dual invest­ment thres­holds were not aligned with the subscrip­tion rights of exis­ting share­hol­ders in the event of capi­tal increa­ses under the German Stock Corpo­ra­tion Act (AktG). The now presen­ted draft bill of a law on the further imple­men­ta­tion of the EU Pros­pec­tus Regu­la­tion and on the amend­ment of finan­cial market laws of Novem­ber 12, 2018 provi­des that the indi­vi­dual invest­ment thres­holds do not apply to secu­ri­ties offe­red to exis­ting share­hol­ders in the context of a rights issue.

“It is a great success for our still young asso­cia­tion that we succee­ded in chan­ging the law and uniting the inte­rests of the capi­tal market-orien­­ted SMEs. There has never been such a peti­tion and an asso­cia­tion of capi­tal market-orien­­ted SMEs in this form before. The success proves us right in our efforts,” says Ingo Wege­rich (photo), Presi­dent of the Asso­cia­tion and Part­ner at Luther Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft.

About the Inter­es­sen­ver­band kapi­tal­markt­ori­en­tier­ter klei­ner und Mitte­ler Unter­neh­men e.V.
Foun­ded on August 30, 2017 and head­quar­te­red in Frank­furt am Main, the asso­cia­tion is parti­cu­larly commit­ted to impro­ving the rele­vant frame­work condi­ti­ons for small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses in capi­tal market finan­cing and actively advo­ca­tes the inte­rests of capi­tal market-orien­­ted SMEs in dialog with poli­cy­ma­kers, legis­la­tive bodies, super­vi­sory autho­ri­ties, capi­tal market insti­tu­ti­ons, inte­rest groups and the gene­ral public. Members are SMEs, service provi­ders, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons and the media. The Manage­ment Board includes Ingo Wege­rich (Luther Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft), Alex­an­der Starke, Nils Manegold (max 21 AG), Alex­an­der Deuss (mwb fair­trade) and Thomas Stewens (BankM).

Inter­es­sen­ver­band kapi­tal­markt­ori­en­tier­ter klei­ner und mitt­le­rer Unter­neh­men e.V.