Mercado Alternativo Bursátil/Alternative Stock Market (MAB) for expanding companies
The Spanish
Alternative Stock Market (MAB, by its Spanish initials), is an organized
multilateral trading system for buying and selling shares. It is addressed,
mainly, to medium sized companies and also small startups which are increasing
in terms of revenues or potential.
The Collective
Investment Institutions (in Spanish IIC for Instituciones
de Inversión Colectiva) and Venture Capital Companies (in Spanish ECR for Entidades de Capital Riesgo), have specific rules that not
concern us in this entry.
This market is
created in a free way, according to the regulations of the Securities Market
Act (LMV in Spanish) and under the supervision of the CNMV (like the SEC in
USA).
The requirements
for accessing the MAB are governed by the General Rules of the MAB and its
Circular 5/2010, regarding the rules applicable to the inclusion and exclusion
in the MAB for expanding companies.
Companies that want
to trade its shares in the MAB must be a limited company by shares (SA in
Spanish), whose share capital has to be fully paid and its shares must be
freely transferable. Therefore, if there are statutory limitations on the the
buying and selling of shares these limitations should be removed. In addition,
the shares need to be represented in book-entries.
It is also
important to note that the trading in this market implies the duty to comply
with certain standards of accounting and finance. In compliance with these
standards, each company is allowed to choose between various options:
i) Companies from
the European Economic Area (EEA) can choose between IFRS (in Spanish NIIF) or
accounting standards of the Member State.
ii) Companies not
from the EEA can choose between IFRS or US GAAP.
Regarding the
turnover there isn’t a specific minimum, but companies with the aim to access
in the MAB should be developing relevant operations either selling products or
services or fundraising to sell. If the company has less than three financial
years of existence must submit their forecasts for the current year and the following.
Finally, companies
incorporated in the MAB requires its members to make public the shareholders’
agreements.