Overview

The Aquis Stock Exchange (AQSE) (link to AQSE Ex­change website), formerly the NEX Exchange, is a stock market providing primary and secondary markets for equity and debt products.

AQSE operates two primary traded markets and a single secondary traded market:

The AQSE Main Market is a UK Regulated Market for officially listed securities which are regulated by the UK Listing Authority or another EU Competent Authority and are subject to the AQSE Main Market Admission and Disclosure Standards (primary market).

The AQSE Growth Market is a primary market with a regulatory environment designed to meet the needs of small and mid-cap issuers wishing to obtain a quotation on a public market to access growth capital. The AQSE Growth Market is a multilateral trading facility and is registered as an SME growth market. However, it is not a UK regulated market and securities admitted to trading on the AQSE Growth Market are unlisted securities.

AQSE Trading is a trading venue for listed or quoted securities admitted to trading on other EU markets.

AQSE Growth Market – fin­an­cial re­port­ing re­quire­ments

The fin­an­cial re­port­ing rules for AQSE Growth Market com­pan­ies are set out in the AQSE Growth Market – Rules for issuers (link to AQSE website). In summary:

• The financial information must be prepared in accordance with IFRS, UK GAAP, US GAAP or such other standard as may be agreed with the Exchange for third country issuers. If such third country’s national accounting standards are not equivalent to IFRS, UK GAAP or US GAAP, the financial statements shall be restated in IFRS.
• Audited annual accounts in respect of each financial year must be announced as soon as possible and, in any event, not later than six months after the end of the period to which they relate.
• Interim results in respect of the first half of each financial year must be announced as soon as possible and in any event not later than three months after the end of the relevant period. The interim report must be prepared on a basis consistent with the accounting policies which will be applied by the issuer in its next annual accounts.
• The announcement of the interim/annual results must contain a balance sheet, profit and loss account, comparatives, a statement by the board and a statement of whether or not the information has been reviewed by the issuer’s auditor.
• If the audit report on an issuer con­tains an em­phasis of matter re­lat­ing to going concern, a trading state­ment must be pre­pared in the in­ter­ven­ing quar­ters (Q1 and Q3) within a month of the quarter end until an un­mod­i­fied audit report is issued in respect of a sub­sequent period.

Ap­plic­ab­il­ity of UKLA rules to AQSE Growth Market com­pan­ies

AQSE Growth Market is not classified as a UK regulated market under the Companies Act 2006, and AQSE Growth Market securities are not admitted to the official list of the UK Listing Authority. AQSE Growth Market companies are hence not subject to the Listing Rules. The are also not gen­er­ally subject to the Dis­clos­ure Guidance and Trans­par­ency Rules, with the ex­cep­tion of DTR 5 (link to FCA hand­book) (major share­hold­ing and vote holder no­ti­fic­a­tions) which applies dir­ectly to UK in­cor­por­ated AQSE Ex­change Growth Market com­pan­ies.

The UKLA Prospectus Rules (link to FCA hand­book) do not apply unless a company makes a public of­fer­ing of se­cur­it­ies. This means that many AQSE Growth Market com­pan­ies who are first ad­mit­ted to the AQSE Growth Market will instead prepare an Ad­mis­sion Doc­u­ment.