The Confidentiality Agreement

As we have just seen, confidentiality should be maintained when conducting a beauty parade for an IPO, as well as generally throughout the execution of the transaction. The reasons for this are to avoid speculation in the media on the attractiveness (or lack thereof), size and offer structure for the deal, and also because the only document on which the public should legally base its investment decision should be the prospectus published ahead of the retail offer. Information about the IPO leaking in the public domain may therefore give rise to regulatory issues and to unnecessary delays being imposed by regulatory authorities on the transaction. Accordingly, leaks appearing in the financial or general press are to be avoided and must also be managed.