The debut of the new Stock market segment dedicated to small and medium sized capitalisation enterprises (small caps) is now expected shortly. Aims of the Star project are the increase of visibility and liquidity of issuing banks and ease access to information on companies with capitalisation lower than 800 million euro by investors.Segmentation, transparency and liquidity, the three tools the Italian Stock Market has pinpointed to reach these objectives, are also the required Star access and permanence requisites for already quoted or newly quoted companies.
Capitalisation. Capitalisation of "star" shares must be less than 800 million euro. The identification of the threshold, subject to periodic revision, is aimed to the creation of a segment made up of homogeneous companies and representative of small and medium sized Italian companies, excluding all companies included in Midex and Mib30.
Circulation of shares among the public. The "star" qualification is subordinate to a minimum distribution of shares among the public, equal to 35% of social capital for the newly quoted companies, and 20% for already quoted shares. A floating equal to 20% of the social capital is, in any case, a condition for holding the "star" nomination.
The new segmenting should come into full regime during this autumn 2001, at the same time as the ordinary revision of indexes and according to current estimates there are 144 companies quoted in the main list that could be included in the Star project.
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