The changing landscape of corporate fundraising

Abstract

Corporate fundraising for both debt and equity securities is regulated under Ch 6D of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). That chapter imposes a detailed regime of rules for issuing securities to the public that centre on issuing a prospectus (or other "disclosure document" as prescribed by Ch 6D), along with a variety of both general and specific exceptions. Each year, companies raise large amounts of capital under these provisions. For example, even if we only look at companies in the ASX-listed category, in calendar year 2018 over A$46 billion was raised in initial public offerings (IPOs) and over A$57 billion was raised in secondary issues on the ASX. The marketplace for corporate funding is changing though, with new forms of crowdfunding and crypto funding becoming more popular. In recent years, there have been several major changes to corporate fundraising laws, which will be discussed in this note.