ASX has extended its temporary capital raising concessions until 30 November 2020.
Those capital raising concessions were introduced on 31 March 2020, to facilitate emergency capital raisings in response to Covid-19 related business disruption, and were due to expire on 31 July 2020. The relief includes:
a. increasing the placement capacity under listing rule 7.1 from 15% to 25%;
b. providing a temporary waiver of the 1:1 cap on non-renounceable entitlement offers in listing rule 7.11.3; and
c. accommodating back-to-back trading halts, in recognition that deals were generally taking longer to execute.
Click here for full details of this relief (GRT Alert 23 April 2020).
Some limited changes to the conditions of relief have also been made, to ensure ASX’s pre-authorisation before relying on the relief and some additional disclosure around the purposes for a capital raising.
The extended deadline is made in recognition of the continuing Covid-19 impacts and is intended to allow enough time for companies to undertake a capital raising following completion of their 2020 audited accounts. Listed companies have until 31 October 2020 to lodge their audited accounts for the 2020 financial year (as per ASIC’s extended deadline).
GRT Lawyers will continue to provide updates as these matters develop.