We’ve previously blogged about efforts to get the LTSE off the ground — and earlier this month, they culminated with the official opening of the exchange. Here’s an excerpt from the LTSE’s press release announcing its debut:
The Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE), the only national securities exchange built to serve companies and investors who share a long-term vision, has opened for business. The exchange went live on Wednesday with the trading of all U.S. exchange-listed securities and a mission to offer companies in every industry a public-market option designed to sustain long-term growth. To list their shares on the exchange, companies are required to publish and maintain a series of policies that are designed to provide shareholders and other stakeholders with insight into their long-term strategies, practices, plans and measures.
The policies are based on five underlying principles, which hold that long term-focused companies consider a broad group of stakeholders, measure success in years and decades, align compensation of executives and directors with long-term performance, engage directors in long-term strategy (and grant them explicit oversight of this strategy), and engage long-term shareholders.
A Davis Polk blog has additional information on the LTSE, including the fact although no companies are yet listed on the exchange, it “allows shares of companies, regardless of whether they are listed on the LTSE or another exchange, to trade simultaneously and in real time across all U.S. exchanges, alternative trading systems and platforms operated by securities dealers.”
Market status information from the NYSE suggests that the LTSE has gotten off to a bit of a bumpy start when it comes to its trading activities, but a PitchBook article highlights the exchange’s big plans to develop an alternative market for IPO companies.
-John Jenkins, TheCorporateCounsel.net October 2, 2020
