NEWS & MEDIA
ECM Insights – April 2019
17 April 2019
Market Overview
2019 has seen a drop in fundraising and listing activity in comparison to this time last year. There have been zero new issues on AIM in January and only three in the Main Market.
While there has been significant slowdown in the market, two bright spots in terms of fundraising are the Healthcare and Oil and Gas sectors, which make up the majority of the funds raised in January. While the Materials sector saw a high level of activity, the amounts of funds raised were disproportionately low.
Shard Capital is looking ahead to the release of February numbers to determine if January was only a bump in the road or the beginning of a downward trend.
While companies may be expected to “graduate” from AIM to the Main Market, potentially lower costs and regulatory requirements may have driven companies to do the opposite.
Over recent years, there has been a trend for smaller companies to choose the Main Market over AIM. This may be reversing.
So far, 2019 has seen two companies move from AIM to the Main Market while two companies have gone the other way.