Japan Exchange Seeks Public Comment on Proposed Listing Changes
Japan Exchange Seeks Public Comment on Proposed Listing Changes
(Bloomberg) -- The Tokyo Stock Exchange will seek public comments on improving governance for parent-child listings as well as criteria for companies seeking to list on the first section, Japan Exchange Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Akira Kiyota said.
The proposal, which is set for tentative implementation in February 2020, will seek ways to enhance independence of listed subsidiaries from their parent companies. It also includes a proposal for companies desiring to be moved to the first section of the exchange, suggesting that those seeking promotion not report false statements or get adverse opinions from an auditor for the past two business years, as opposed to five currently.
The proposal comes as the market’s attention remains focused on how likely JPX is to adopt stricter rules to reduce the number of stocks trading on the first section, which currently has over 2,000 members, and how many of them should be included on the Topix. Another question is what the exchange will do with its second section and two startup gauges, the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers Index and Jasdaq.
A proposal last week from a working group at the Financial Services Agency called for the exchange to be pared down to three sections -- prime, standard and growth. In discussions on how the Topix index will be formed, the FSA working group suggested the gauge be made up of mostly prime members and some standard.
“If the working group’s discussion can be concluded within this year, then paring the markets from four sections to three is one model that can be considered,” Kiyota said at a press briefing held in Osaka.
--With assistance from Lily Nonomiya.
To contact the reporters on this story: Shoko Oda in Tokyo at soda13@bloomberg.net;Ayaka Maki in Tokyo at amaki8@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lianting Tu at ltu4@bloomberg.net, Naoto Hosoda, Kurt Schussler
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