AIM

Background

As part of your exit plans you may have considered floating on AIM. AIM is a second tier market, established in June 1995 by the London Stock Exchange to encourage smaller companies to access the public markets for finance.

AIM is operated and monitored by the London Stock Exchange.

If you would like to find out whether your business is suitable for AIM please call us 01928 756 880

Benefits

The benefits of being on AIM are essentially the benefits of floating any company: to access finance for growth; to provide a valuation for the shares in the company; to provide a market for trading in the shares of the company and to provide the company with added "prestige" and public profile to attract customers and employees.

Disclosure Requirements

One of the responsibilities of being on AIM is to provide shareholders with timely information on the company and its prospects. Accordinglty there is a requirement to disclose any "price sensitive" information. This might include:

significant changes in shareholdings

changes in directors and advisers

transactions over the class test

interims to be published within four months

final accounts within six months

Trading

With AIM listed securities there is no requirement for a market maker. Shares to be traded are matched through a nominated broker.

Advantages

AIM’s advantages over a full/official list:

unquoted for tax purposes

no minimum shares in issue

no minimum trading record

nomads

prospectus not listing particulars, thus covered by POS regulations

AIM market statistics

London Stock Exchange - AIM market statistics

At September 2005, Growth Company Investor reported that AIM had 1,277 companies with a combined valuation of over £47 billion.

This report showed that disclosed institutional holdings represented 40.9%. The most active institutions by number of investments at September 2005 is shown below

Most active institutions by number of investments

Institution	Number of investments	Value £m
Fidelity	113	693
F&C	112	300
Artemis	94	451
Gartmore	65	196
RAB Capital	58	205
Framlington	56	222
Chase Manhattan*	52	93
Invesco	51	221
Pershing Keen*	48	31
Merrill Lynch	46	244
Source: www.growthcompanyinvestor Denotes nominee accounts. A nominee account is one in which the named holder is the legal owner of the shares, yet holds the assets in it on behalf of another, the beneficiary. New issues: Most active institutions in 2005*
Institution	Number of investments	Value £m
Fidelity	26	123
Invesco	22	114
RAB Capital	28	105
Artemis	22	94
Lansdowne Partners	10	78
Merrill Lynch	17	63
Moore Capital Management	9	60
Jupiter Asset Management	11	59
F&C	24	58
Goldman Sachs	12	55
Source: www.growthcompanyinvestor *Denotes nominee accounts. A nominee account is one in which the named holder is the legal owner of the shares, yet holds the assets in it on behalf of another, the beneficiary.

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