AIM - The First XI

AIM is 11 years old this month. It has enjoyed some outstanding publicity recently, which is no doubt one of the reasons why Deutsche Börse, NASDAQ, Euronext and Macquarie have been circling the LSE with interest. Some background might help to explain the phenomenon.

The Alternative Investment Market, as it was then known, was set up in 1995 to help those companies looking for public capital which were too small or at too early a stage in their development to join the LSE’s Official List. Those responsible for its formation cleverly reasoned that a market which encouraged smaller, less developed businesses to float and granted them access to public capital would flourish in time. To do this, they decided to allow these companies to come to market with no trading record, no requirement to sell shares to the public and no minimum market capitalisation.