On 18 February 2020, ESMA updated its Q&As in relation to Regulation (EU) 2017/1129 of 14 June 2017 on the prospectus to be published when securities are offered to the pubic or admitted to trading on a regulated market (the “Prospectus Regulation”) with two new Q&As clarifying the permitted length of summaries in prospectuses for multiple securities and multiple guarantors.
Pursuant to Article 7(3) of the Prospectus Regulation, the length of summary in a prospectus shall not exceed seven sides of A4-sized paper when printed.
Pursuant to Article 7(7), where a single summary covers several securities which differ only in some very limited details, such as the issue price or maturity date, the maximum length set out in paragraph 3 shall be extended by two additional sides of A4-sized paper only. ESMA has clarified in these updated Q&As that the extension of two additional pages is not per security. In total, the summary cannot exceed nine sides of A4-sized paper. On the other hand, the summary in a key information document (KID) can be extended by three pages for each additional security.
Pursuant to Article 7(7)(c), where there is a guarantee attached to the securities, specific information on that guarantee and the guarantor must be included in the section of the summary which provides key information on the securities. In such case, the maximum length of the summary shall be extended by one additional side of A4-sized paper per guarantor. ESMA stresses the need to keep summaries with multiple guarantors as short as possible and encourages that the additional pages only be used for information relating to the guarantors.
Share on
