Canadian Securities Regulators Launch Pilot WKSI Program

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) have adopted temporary exemptions that, effective January 4, 2022, will exempt qualifying well-known seasoned issuers (WKSIs) that satisfy certain conditions from the requirement to file and obtain a receipt for a preliminary base shelf prospectus, making it faster and more efficient for these issuers to raise capital in Canada¹.

What you need to know

• To qualify as a WKSI, an issuer must have outstanding listed equity securities that have a public float of C$500 million or at least C$1 billion aggregate amount of non-convertible securities, other than equity securities, distributed under a prospectus in primary offerings for cash in the last three years.