Investors push for AIM upgrades
Up to 50 leading AIM-quoted companies are being urged by investors to join the main list in 2007
Adam Hart, chair of the AIM advisory group and of
KBC Peel Hunt, told
Accountancy Age that companies are making the rare move of seeking
tighter regulation on the bigger markets as investors ratchet up demands.
‘It is undoubtedly being driven by fund managers,’ said Hart. ‘A number of
institutions are concerned that investing in AIM is outside the correlative
indices of the main list by which their success is mainly judged.
‘We’re talking about companies with a market value of £100m and above, and
out of our client list we can see four moving up. We could see 40 to 50 in
2007.’
Last year, only three companies; IP Group, Accident Exchange and Connaught
took the springboard from AIM into the main market, but Hart believed that this
figure would rocket as the influence of the fund managers was brought to bear.
The main list is undoubtedly the blue riband market, but: ‘Companies see a
lot of the regulation as overbearing, but he who provides the funds may well
call the tune,’ Hart said. ‘It may be a case of “if you want our money, we want
you to go on the main list.”’