ASIC announces new strategic priority as part of its corporate plan

It was expected, but has now been confirmed, that Australia’s private capital markets are being drawn firmly into the spotlight of the corporate and markets regulator. ASIC’s strategic priorities for the coming 12 months have been expanded to include public and private markets plus existing and emerging financial products. ASIC’s 2024-25 Corporate Plan includes this area as a new pillar, underscoring a commitment to drive consistency and transparency across those markets.

The media release quotes ASIC chair Joe Longo as saying: ‘While Australia’s private markets are dwarfed in size by our listed equity markets, their opacity presents an outsized risk to market integrity, particularly as more investors become exposed’.

The growth in private markets has been a significant feature of institutional investing over recent times, but with products in asset classes such as private credit now being increasingly accessed by a range of investor types. Private market participants, including fund sponsors, asset managers and investors will now need to be cognisant of the potential for increased scrutiny although challengingly in an environment where it is not yet clear what ASIC’s concerns might be with how private capital markets and their participants currently operate. Time will tell how ASIC’s new strategic approach will play out, but in the meantime we will be tracking this and other key developments in the private capital space and providing our own take on where this review might head, including in our Private Capital Pulse vlog series, available here.