Disclosure for capital market transactions is time sensitive.

Where announcements and circulars are required for certain transactions under the Listing Requirements, public listed companies must ensure these are done in a timely manner, in accordance with the Listing Requirements.

For IPO, the deadline for submission of prospectus is determined by, among others, the financial year end of the applicant company. The date of the prospectus issuance must not be later than 6 months after the end of the most recent financial year, as required under the Prospectus Guidelines.

Where valuation report is submitted to the Securities Commission Malaysia, the applicant company must submit the IPO proposal to the SC not later than 1 month from the submission of the valuation report, as required under the Asset Valuation Guidelines.

It is not unusual for due diligence working group (“DDWG”) to go through several rounds of review of draft announcement and circular before the announcement is finally made and circular is finally circulated to shareholders.

The following are some ways to facilitate the disclosure and submission timeline:

1. The DDWG should be informed at the outset when announcement is to be made, circular is to be submitted to Bursa (if required) and circulated to shareholders, and when IPO submission is to take place.

2. When circulating draft announcement, circular, prospectus, etc., for comments, inform the DDWG the deadline to provide their comments.

3. Have reasonable deadlines. There should be sufficient time for the DDWG to verify the information in the submission documents and provide their comments.

4. Get each of the DDWG members to comment on one draft (the same draft) or confirm they have no comment before circulating another revised draft to avoid confusion.

5. Pick up the phone to discuss the issues if that is more efficient.

What would you add to the list?

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This post was first posted on Linkedin on 29 September 2021.