SFC’s consultation on a proposed Code of Conduct for Hong Kong Bookbuilding and Placing Activities in Equity Capital Market and Debt Capital Market transactions and a proposal on sponsor coupling.
Key features of the SFC’s proposals include:
- a new paragraph 21 will be added to the SFC Code of Conduct setting out standards of conduct expected of intermediaries involved in bookbuilding and placing activities;
- syndicate membership and fee arrangements must be determined at an early stage;
- intermediaries must be formally appointed under written agreements setting out their roles, responsibilities and fee arrangements; and
- for IPOs, at least one overall coordinator (OC) must be appointed as a sponsor and this sponsor must be independent of the issuer.