Reference is made to the information regarding clearing of subscription rights sent to the issuers of securities listed on Oslo Børs, Euronext Expand and Euronext Growth Oslo on 1 February 2022. Any subscription right listed for trading on all Oslo Børs trading venues will become clearable by the pool of interoperable CCPs by 1st March 2022.

Updated rules will enter into force on 1 March 2022 and be made available on the website of Euronext.

Launch of the Euronext Tech Leaders at Scale-Up Europe on 8 February 2022: building an inter-connected financial ecosystem to finance high-growth Tech champions

Roundtable with Stéphane Boujnah, CEO and Chairman of the Managing Board of Euronext, on “Enhancing the financing of European Tech ecosystems in order to create world champions”

On 8 February 2022, during the “Scale-up Europe” initiative hosted by the French Presidency of the EU, the French Minister of Finance, Bruno Le Maire, together with the governments of Germany, Spain, Italy and Greece, announced that 10 European countries are aiming to launch a fund of €10 billion to finance scale-ups. It will address the crucial issue of funding scale-ups’ fast growth.

Stéphane Boujnah, CEO and Chairman of the Managing Board of Euronext, took part in a panel on “Enhancing the financing of European Tech ecosystems in order to create world champions”, notably next to Pieter Van Der Does, CEO of Adyen, Stéphanie Yon-Courtin, Member of the European Parliament, Zoé Fabian, Partner at Eurazeo, Alain Godard, Chief Executive, EIF, and moderated by Charlie Perreau from les Echos.

In this context, Stéphane Boujnah announced that Euronext will be launching Euronext Tech Leaders, a segment dedicated to Tech companies, with a full suite of pre-IPO and post-IPO services that will be deployed from the 7 markets where we operate in Europe (Amsterdam, Brussels, Dublin, Lisbon, Milan, Oslo, Paris). The new Euronext Tech Leaders segment is dedicated to supporting Tech companies in their growth and financing journey, in response to the increasing need for solutions to finance the fast growth of next generation tech giants. Approximately  50% of the companies listed on Euronext markets in 2021 were Tech companies raising €10.92 billion.

Looking back at the foundations of this project, Stéphane Boujnah notably highlighted the challenges that lay ahead to further build an inter-connected European financial ecosystem that will allow to transform science and technology into growth and job creation in Europe, as a matter of European sovereignty. Capital markets allow companies to finance investment, innovation, growth, and provide an infrastructure for Tech companies to access equity and funds. Euronext is already the leading listing venue for tech financing in Europe. Out of the 2000 companies listed on Euronext, 763 are Tech companies, representing €1.8 trillion of market capitalisation as of 31 December 2021.

There is a need to further inter-connect the European ecosystem of investors, equity research analysts and unicorns.  To shape the appropriate “triangle” in order to allow Tech growth funding, we need to work on further connecting companies with investors, when their natural next step is to go public and list on our markets in order to finance their growth, but also to complete this “triangle” by building a critical mass of equity research, in order to deliver strong transparent information to investors. Private equity and public markets are strongly committed to connecting issuers with investors, especially at Euronext, through initiatives such as Euronext Tech Leaders and its complementary pan-European pre-IPO educational programme, TechShare.

This move towards building an efficient Tech growth funding system is being significantly accelerated by European stakeholders with the previously mentioned initiatives, led by the EU and by Euronext. It is also facilitated by the depth of the European liquidity pool, Euronext’s being the largest in Europe with a liquidity platform across 7 exchanges in Europe. With an aggregate market capitalisation of €6.9 trillion from companies listed across Euronext markets , today, 25% of the equity traded in Europe is traded on Euronext markets. Euronext’s trading platform has an average of €12 billion volumes traded daily. The depth of liquidity is the most fundamental differentiating factor for any public market. And due to the depth of its market, Euronext is an accelerator of growth at European scale by increasing its support in preparing companies getting ready to go public on capital markets.

The new Euronext Tech Leaders segment is complementary to TechShare. By placing these high-growth Tech companies in a single segment, companies will have be more visible to global investors. In addition to this, grouping companies in a segment like Tech Leaders can mean more liquidity and better pricing when it comes to investment.

On this occasion, Stéphane Boujnah also highlighted that further to the Mifid II reforms, the complete economics of equity research have been significantly depleted, specifically for Small Caps and medium-size brokers. The industry is currently working on repairing the economics of equity research. There are two issues that need to be solved in Europe in that regard: the scarcity of equity analysts and finding an equity model for equity research. Euronext is confident in that regard as the EU and the Commission are putting forward proposals related to this. 

Once this has been achieved, it is then time to reinforce interdependency between investors, equity research analysts and unicorns. The transition to an efficient European growth funding model for Tech major players requires further building of an adequate inter-connected financial ecosystem. The described “triangle” will be the result of the ecosystem Euronext has been working to deliver since its transformative IPO in 2015.  The challenge in finding financing sources for high-growth Tech champions is speed in the EU capital markets union process, but also scale, and we at Euronext, along with our partners, have put forward a major contribution with the launch of Euronext Tech Leaders. If Europe wants to build its strategic autonomy, as it is the aim of the French Presidency of the Council of the EU over the next few months, then capital markets is the place to build strategic autonomy to focus our influence.

Euronext is the leading listing venue in Europe, with 212 listings recorded in 2021. More than 50% of the listed companies in 2021 are Tech companies, of which for example: Allfunds, Exclusive Networks, Believe, Aramis, OVHCloud, Aker Horizons. 288 Tech companies have listed on Euronext since 2017, €184 billion have been raised in shares since 2017, more than 2,250 institutional investors have been identified in the Tech sector, and €85 million have been raised, on average, at IPO, since 2017. Among the 212 listings recorded in 2021, 109 were Tech companies. And among the close to 2000 issuers, 763 are Tech companies, corresponding to an aggregate market capitalisation of the Tech sector of €1.8 trillion as of 31 December 2021.

Euronext is proud to become a founding member of Sustainable Trading, a non-profit membership network dedicated to transforming environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices within the financial markets trading industry.

Getting involved with the Sustainable Trading initiative from the start has been a strategic decision for Euronext, as ESG is at the forefront of our Growth for Impact 2024 strategy.

As a board member of this initiative, Euronext will be working in collaboration with the entire industry to drive positive ESG change by developing best practices, benchmarking and transparency, with a focus on how the financial trading industry builds, maintains, and operates trading infrastructure.

Oslo Børs welcomed the winning team of the Euronext Blue Challenge, Marival UB, as guests-of-honour on a special bell rininging ceremony lead by Øivind Amundsen, CEO Oslo Børs, to celebrate their victory and to receive their Europe winning trophy.

The team flew all the way from Molde in Western Norway to Oslo to meet in person their mentors, the Euronext volunteers who accompanied them over this journey.

Marival UB is an innovative youth enterprise that focuses on the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth; they developed a product that reflects sound waves, allowing fishermen to locate lost equipment immediately thanks to an echo sounder. The team explained that they would like to continue the project further, but would put it on hold until they had completed high school.

Developed in partnership with JA Europe and held for the first time this year, the Euronext Blue Challenge is a hands-on programme for school students aged between 15 and 18, across the different countries in which Euronext operates. The programme aims to inspire students about sustainable finance and the blue economy, whilst helping them develop core job skills such as teamwork, problem-solving, presentation, and entrepreneurial skills. This first programme saw approximately 175 students create 35 ‘mini-companies’ with the support of 44 Euronext mentors. 

Stéphane Boujnah, CEO and Chairman of the Managing Board of Euronext, and Sylvia Andriessen, General Counsel at Euronext, had the pleasure of meeting the young students who wan the Blue Innovation Award, as part of the first edition of the Blue Challenge.

This limited meeting had the objective of sharing experiences, address students' plans for the future, as well as how the project has developed since winning the challenge.

Using ocean resources for sustainable economic growth, their innovative project allows fishermen to quickly locate and recover lost equipment, successfully demonstrating their understanding of the Blue Economy and financial literacy concepts.

For the 2nd edition of the Blue Challenge, we have expanded our programme to Denmark and Italy, encouraging financial literacy, knowledge of the Blue Economy and innovation to limit climate change amongst young entrepreneurs in nine countries: Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. 

Building on a successful pilot during the last school year 2020-21, Euronext and JA Europe have expenaded their entrepreneurship education programme, The Blue Challenge, to Denmark and Italy. Euronext and JA Europe will now be able to boost financial literacy and encourage innovation to limit climate change and to foster the Blue Economy amongst young entrepreneurs in nine countries: Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

The programme aims to inspire students aged 16 to 18 about sustainable finance and help them develop core competencies such as teamwork, problem-solving and entrepreneurial skills.

The Euronext Blue Challenge is the flagship initiative of Our Society, one of five material impact areas within our ESG strategy. Through this collaboration, we will be able to boost financial literacy and encourage innovation to limit climate change and to promote the blue economy amongst young entrepreneurs.

In the course of the academic year, over 250 students will learn about sustainable finance while working on their own business projects supported by mentoring and webinars from Euronext volunteers. After national selections in April, country finalists will compete for the Euronext “Blue Innovation Award”.