The UK’s Financial Services Authority has eased its reporting requirement for short sales following a review but otherwise plans to make no changes to the regime, which bars the taking of
The UK’s Financial Services Authority has eased its reporting requirement for short sales following a review but otherwise plans to make no changes to the regime, which bars the taking of new short positions on 34 financial sector firms until January 16.
When the FSA introduced the additional short selling measures in the Code of Market Conduct on September 18, in a move co-ordinated with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulators, it committed both to review them after 30 days and to publish the results of a comprehensive review of short selling in January.
The UK financial regulator has now conducted the promised 30-day review and says that with one exception, it has concluded that it should not make any changes to the measures at this time. The SEC, by contrast, listed the ban on short selling of financial stocks once the legislation authorising a US government bailout of the sector was in place.
The one change relates to the requirements for disclosing significant net short positions in UK financial sector stocks, introduced as of September 23. The FSA accepts that it is not a proportionate requirement to require daily disclosures of short positions where there has been no change in a short position.
The regulator says it will therefore amend the Code of Market Conduct so that once disclosure of a short position has been made, additional disclosures will only be required when the position changes. A further announcement will be made when this change is in place.
The institutions, consisting of banks, insurers and listed financial holding companies, affected by the restrictions on short selling, are:
1 Aberdeen Asset Management
2 Admiral Group
3 Alliance & Leicester
4 Alliance Trust
5 Arbuthnot Banking Group
6 Aviva
7 Barclays
8 Brit Insurance Holdings
9 Chesnara
10 Close Brothers Group
11 European Islamic Investment Bank
12 F&C Asset Management
13 Friends Provident
14 HBOS
15 Highway Insurance Group
16 HSBC Holdings
17 Investec
18 Islamic Bank of Britain
19 Just Retirement Holdings
20 Legal & General
21 Lloyds TSB Group
22 London Scottish Bank
23 Novae Group
24 Old Mutual
25 Provident Financial
26 Prudential
27 Rathbone Brothers
28 Royal Bank of Scotland Group
29 RSA Insurance Group
30 Schroders
31 St James’s Place
32 Standard Chartered
33 Standard Life
34 Tawa
