On Thursday 24 May, the European Commission proposed new rules aiming to make it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) to obtain financing on the stock markets, as announced in its mid-term action plan on the Capital Markets Union (see EUROPE 11804).
Despite the advantages of stock market floatation, the EU stock markets aimed at SMEs have struggled to attract new issuers. Of the 20 million SMEs in Europe, just 3,000 are stock-exchange listed, said the European Commissioner for...