Firms lose AIM clients as market falls

The top five auditors in London’s Alternative Investment Market saw their combined customer base shrink by more than £5bn by market cap in the three months from November to February, according to new data.

Fourteen of the top 20 auditing firms lost clients, figures from investment research company Hemscott have shown.

Grant Thornton, which has the most AIM-listed audit clients, has been hit hardest. The UK’s fifth biggest audit firm saw the market capitalisation of its customer base fall by about £1.3bn. KPMG saw its customer base shrink by £1.1bn, and Ernst & Young by £664m.

Hemscott said the dip in the AIM market was more ‘severe’ in its latest survey than the previous quarter.

‘The tide has certainly turned for perennial leader Grant Thornton, which fared best when the AIM market was expanding and is now more vulnerable to the downturn,’ the Hemscott survey said.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has held its lead in the FTSE-100 and small cap markets with 39 and 98 audit clients respectively. However, Deloitte has edged ahead of PwC in the FTSE-250 market.