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Last updated on June 16, 2026
The first deal on the London Stock Exchange’s Private Securities Market is complete, and more are preparing to launch. If you’re a founder thinking about liquidity for employees, early backers or new investors, here is how to get your business ready.
You can find the full rules of engagement in the rulebook, which outlines the framework for how private companies may facilitate secondary liquidity on the Private Securities Market (PSM) while remaining private.
In doing so, PSM gives private companies a more orderly, centralised way to run secondary liquidity while staying private. It is designed to offer private companies an alternative route to liquidity, without the need to go through an IPO. Founders can create liquidity for employees and early shareholders, attract new capital providers, and keep control over who participates, when trading happens, and on what terms. It is available to private companies and investors internationally, subject to relevant regulatory and legal requirements. Companies continue to operate as private companies, with obligations tailored to the private markets’ context.
Here is a five-step checklist to help you get your company ready, reduce cap table pressure, and move from messy bilateral secondaries to a more structured multilateral process:
1. Establish your goals
Decide who may want liquidity, how much you want to facilitate, over what time horizon, and which investors you would like to bring onto the cap table.
Start with the fundamentals. Selling interest may come from employees, angels, early venture investors or other existing shareholders. The size of that demand, and the type of investor you want to attract in response, will shape your auction strategy. Engaging with the Exchange early can help assess a company’s eligibility to participate in the Private Securities Market and map out the process.
2. Build your advisory and execution team
If you want to go beyond your existing network, work with banks or brokers who can help identify investors and sense-check early thinking on valuation and demand.
Any buyer or seller must ultimately access the market through a Registered Auction Agent (RAA). RAAs verify investor eligibility, control access to disclosures and place orders during the auction. In practice, they are the gateway to the market.
A range of firms are already set up as RAAs. That means you can decide whether to cast the net widely across institutional, family office and sophisticated investor pools, or keep participation controlled and targeted.
You should also think about what support you need around legal, accounting and valuation work, particularly if you are preparing employee participation, shareholder approvals or changes to your articles.
3. Get your house in order: secure shareholder buy-in and start to prepare
Once you’ve assessed both company eligibility and potential sources of liquidity, you can begin the preparation required for joining and onboarding to the Private Securities Market. The market is flexible on share classes, allowing you to offer one or more classes into an auction, and in some cases use the process to help simplify a more complex cap table.
If employees are participating, review your option schemes carefully. In the UK that may include EMI or CSOP arrangements, but the broader point is to make sure employees can benefit from liquidity in a way that works within your legal and tax structure.
You will also need to review your articles of association, transfer restrictions and settlement arrangements. Shares need to be eligible for electronic settlement in CREST during an auction window, so this is the point at which paper-based or spreadsheet-heavy processes need to become more robust.
You will need shareholder approval to join the market, so start those conversations early. For many boards, this is as much about education as process: explaining how the market works, why it can improve liquidity, and how it can do so without forcing a sale or IPO.
4. Plan your auction strategy and timeline
Founders have meaningful control over auction design. You decide how often auctions take place, whether they are open to the full pool of eligible investors or permissioned to a defined group you select, and who can participate in each auction – within the framework of the rulebook.
You can also set pricing bands and volume parameters. That helps create a more orderly process, supports price discipline and reduces the risk of random bilateral trades sending the wrong signal about value.
You should also allow enough time to prepare disclosures that meet investor expectations and the market’s core requirements.
5. Apply to join the market and execute
Once you are ready, submit a joining application and work with the Exchange on timing your launch on the Disclosure Portal. That is the point at which eligible investors can see that an auction is coming and start reviewing whether they can participate.
You will then complete your company profile and upload core disclosures covering the business, financials and other key information. There is also scope to include additional voluntary disclosure if you want to help investors build conviction ahead of the auction.
Do not leave it too late. There is a minimum preparation window before trading, including time for disclosure review, investor Q&A and final confirmations.
The bottom line: the Private Securities Market gives private companies a new way to create liquidity, broaden their investor base and stay in control. For global founders with increasingly international cap tables, that matters. The companies that prepare early will be best placed to use it well.
If you are thinking about employee liquidity, shareholder secondaries or widening your investor base, now is a good time to start the conversation. Learn more about Private Securities Market here.
