Henry Livingston Junior

In some western European countries, the absence of effective public equity markets for SMEs has been addressed by the creation of secondtier equity markets. A three-tier equity market is now a common structure, consisting of an official list, a ‘junior’ market or league of the official list for smaller companies with a less demanding entry and trading regime, and an unregulated OTC market. The second-tier market enables SMEs to gain access to public equity at an earlier stage than waiting to qualify