A listing on the stock exchange requires compliance with certain legal requirements. These requirements should give investors a solid basis for reaching investment decisions. Therefore, the criteria for an exchange listing and the subsequent ongoing obligations focus mainly on the issues of minimum size and period of existence of the company, minimum free float of the stocks as well as information for investors in publications for shareholders (e.g. financial reports and ad hoc disclosures).
Basically, there are two paths to the capital market for companies in Europe: First, there are the EU-regulated markets and, second, there are markets regulated by the stock exchanges themselves and operated as multilateral trading facilities (MTF).