ARIR (Romanian Association for Investor Relations), the promoter of the Investor Relations (IR) concept, welcomes the efforts of the Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF) and the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) to consolidate the AeRO segment and announces its openness to support the initiative publicly announced by the ASF and the BVB for transparency and increasing the level of trust for the AeRO market within the BVB.

ARIR believes that a natural step in the evolution of the AeRO market is the gradual increase in transparency, which would provide confidence to investors and allow companies to prepare for the Regulated Market.

“We believe that the market has proven its effectiveness for most listed companies in recent years and it is important to maintain the attractiveness of this market for growing companies and investors. We support compliance with two main objectives: investors’ access to information, especially in the pre-listing phase, for a longer period of knowledge of the issuer, and maintaining a relatively easy access of issuers to stock market mechanisms, at a level that does not burden excessively companies interested in listing on this segment”, say the organization’s officials.

In this sense, ARIR proposes 5 measures:

1. Encouraging more intensive communication of pre-listing companies, through tools such as the creation of an IPO Watchlist:
2. to bring to the public’s attention the companies that intend to list with a sufficiently long period before the final decision;
3. which allows for a longer follow-up of the management and financial operational results of the companies;
4. The cautionary management of short-term and long-term expectations regarding the company’s outlook, described in the presentation documents, including detailed explanations on the use of money raised from investors, as well as periodic reporting on the results of the use of the funds. Also including the elements on which the operational achievements are based and the risks to which the company is exposed and which may affect the results of the company post-listing.
5. Encouraging pre-listing Investor Relations (IR) activity by applying the “Act as a Listed Company” concept, implemented in other developed capital markets, during at least one year before the actual listing to validate the company’s readiness for listing;
6. Updating the website of companies wishing to list with a section dedicated to corporate governance and IR, which follows the requirements of VEKTOR AeRO, the indicator developed by ARIR to measure the communication of companies with investors, and which includes the financial and audit reports for the year previous;
7. Creating a pre-listing dialogue framework between companies and experienced market investors and analysts.

The recommendations proposed by ARIR are offered as guidance, not being an exhaustive list of proposals for amending the BVB Code to achieve the stated purpose.