The Esop Centre welcomes the Chancellor’s Mansion House announcement of a timetable for PISCES (Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange), scheduled for May 2025. The initiative provides a robust regulatory framework in which private companies can trade their securities to both investors and to employees.

With financial year ends and annual general meetings not far over the horizon, it is important that chairmen anticipate questions from both employees and investors about their companies’ readiness to adopt PISCES.

The move is not only a positive for companies, their owners and employees with stock, but for equity markets that can help fund growth. The hope is that the discipline of regular dealing in private company stock will prepare businesses for UK public markets which have been in decline in recent times.