BioCentury
ARTICLE | Finance

Hustle and bustle at AIM

March 6, 2006 8:00 AM UTC

There is a growing belief among companies that London's Alternative Investment Market has shed the credibility concerns that once plagued it and is now an acceptable stock market for the blue chip international institutions that biotechs need. Last week, three companies listed on AIM, including two non-U.K. names, while a British company said it would move from LSE's main list to AIM.

"AIM is attractive because virtually all of the blue chip institutions have a proportion of their funds invested in AIM companies, and we are seeing increasing interest in this market from Continental European investors," Juliet Thompson, a banker with Nomura Code Securities, told BioCentury. "A significant proportion of the companies that we have brought to AIM in the last year are incorporated outside the U.K. and have been attracted to London because of its lower regulatory burden and convenient access to a broad spread of institutional investors."...