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The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has published updates to its Admission and Disclosure Standards (for companies on its Main Market) and AIM Rules for Companies (for companies on AIM), in each case to align the rules with the UK's new Public Offers and Admissions to Trading Regulations 2024 (POATRs), which replaced the UK Prospectus Regulation on 19 January 2026. Further information on the POATRs is available on our blog post here.
Admission and Disclosure Standards
The amendments to the LSE's Admission and Disclosure Standards set out in the LSE's Market Notice N01/26 include administrative updates to reflect both the POATRs and the new Prospectus Rules: Admissions to Trading on a Regulated Market sourcebook (PRM) and accompanying changes to the UK Listing Rules published by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
The LSE also confirms in the Notice that companies will still need to apply to the LSE to admit further securities in a class of securities already admitted to trading, even though following changes to the UKLRs which came into effect on 19 January 2026, they no longer need to apply to the FCA for those securities to be admitted to listing.
AIM Rules for Companies
The changes to the AIM Rules are set out in AIM Notice 61 and an amended version of the rules. These confirm that AIM companies must now comply with the POATRs and the PRM and mean that:
- retail investors can participate in an AIM IPO without the need for an FCA-approved prospectus, provided the company publishes an AIM Admission Document;
- AIM companies can more easily include retail investors in secondary fundraisings without the need for an FCA-approved prospectus;
- the requirement in the POATRs that an FCA-approved prospectus contain the 'necessary information' to enable investors to make an informed assessment of the company also applies to AIM Admission Documents; and
- forward-looking statements in AIM Admission Documents will fall under he same liability regime as those in FCA-approved prospectuses, supporting more informative disclosure.
The updated versions of the Admission and Disclosure Standards and the AIM Rules came into force on 19 January 2026 to coincide with the implementation of the POATRs and PRM.
The LSE intends to make further substantive changes to the AIM Rules in the first half of 2026 – see our blog post here for details of the feedback statement published by the LSE following its discussion paper on the future of AIM.
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