ASIC's Joe Longo ramps up private market scrutiny as ASX listings shrink
The corporate regulator is growing increasingly concerned over the ‘de-equisitation’ of the ASX and it's considering cutting compliance in a bid to arrest the trend.
At a small private gathering of just 30 people in London’s marbled Australia House last month, Joe Longo quietly began talking about one of his biggest concerns: the flow of capital into opaque private markets.
In remarks that lasted less than five minutes, the ASIC chair outlined how the shift of investors and capital away from public markets was creating a whole new set of challenges for the regulator, a source in attendance told Capital Brief.
On Wednesday at a Sydney Bloomberg event with the ASX and Barrenjoey, Longo planted a flag on the issue, publicly named it one of the “top five priorities” for ASIC and assigning it its own dedicated unit.
“We need to understand what’s going on there because the very nature of private markets is a lack of transparency and data,” he told market participants and media.
