Global depositary receipts (GDRs) are rapidly overtaking American depositary receipts (ADRs) as issuers’ preferred means of accessing global capital markets.

According to a report from JPMorgan Depositary Receipts Group , 2007 will see GDRs clearly dominate their American counterparts for the first time, due in part to increased reporting and compliance regulations for global issuers stemming from the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act. After a record year for depositary receipts overall in 2006, in which trading volumes grew 22 per cent to 57 billion shares and trading value rose 58 per cent to almost $1.7 billion over 2005, JPMorgan expected the depositary receipt market to grow larger again in 2007. It predicted a “;shift in gravity in DR markets to the south and east”;, with the four burgeoning ‘BRIC’ economies dominating new issues.