Sparks: the SME Stock Exchange

Sparks: the SME Stock Exchange

Fire Up Your Growth Ambitions.

Sparks. The SME Stock Market

Sparks is the perfect environment for SMEs with a market capitalization below CHF 500 million, whether you are a scale-up or an established SME.

A substantial portion of the CHF 100 trillion of capital available through public markets requires the highest quality of liquidity and transparency. This means that a lower liquidity or level of transparency might lead these investors to value your company substantially lower than it is worth – or even to exclude your company from their investment universe.

Do You Have Any Questions?

Our Primary Markets Team will be happy to advise you on all topics related to a listing on the Swiss stock exchange.

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A Sparks listing ensures that SMEs raise capital at the best conditions from investors with a strong liquidity and transparency preference, by providing your company with:

Deepest Liquidity

Sparks has been tailored to the needs of SMEs to optimize the trading and liquidity of their shares. A condensed trading window optimizes price discovery and the execution of trades for companies with smaller market capitalizations. Sparks issuers are automatically connected to the same trading participants as on the Main Market. 

Regulated Transparency

A Sparks listing is a fully-fledged listing. It is not an “IPO light”, as is the case with some foreign SME growth markets. A Sparks listing therefore means that your company becomes subject to the same extensive reporting requirements and regulatory oversight as on the Main Market. Besides annual audited financial statements, ad hoc publicity rules ensure that investors are immediately informed of any information that materially impacts the share price.

Sparks Advantages At-a-Glance

What are the main cornerstones of Sparks?

You can find the listing rules and all other applicable regulations on the SER website. Our experts are here to help you if you have any questions.

The public capital market is a supporting pillar of our economic resilience. The new stock market segment Sparks offers fast-growing companies a new and efficient financing channel and ensures that such companies receive sufficient capital to achieve their ambitions in Switzerland.

Daniela Stoffel, State Secretary for International Finance

Additional benefits include the following:

  • Sparks issuers need only demonstrate an equity capital of CHF 12.0 million on the day of listing (compared to CHF 25 million on the Main Market).
  • Sparks issuers can seamlessly request a transfer to our Main Market when they believe that a longer trading window would maximize their liquidity.
  • Sparks issuers have a concise template at their disposal, which lets them fulfil their corporate-governance reporting requirements faster and more efficiently.
  • Sparks issuers benefit from a 50% fee reduction in listing fees. As an SME, you will benefit from this reduction when you first list on Sparks and then every time you raise follow-on equity capital on the public market.
  • Sparks issuers – like all listed companies – are subject to Swiss takeover rules, which means that (minority) shareholders benefit from special protection.

Advantages of Sparks Compared to the Main Market

Going public (IPO) is a lot of effort, especially for SMEs. Sparks simplifies the entry of SMEs into the stock market with the technology it can offer: 

Do You Have Any Questions?

Our Primary Markets Team will be happy to advise you on all topics related to a listing on the Swiss stock exchange.

Get In Touch

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