Insight - Ready Aim Fire.

(From Financial Director)

Byline: Anthony Harrington.

With nine new issues on the main London stock market so far this year, and more than 43 deals on AIM, one could be forgiven for asking, which is the main market, exactly?

Both markets are seeing accelerated levels of activity. The main market had five IPOs in the period from 1 January to 14 April 2003, raising just GBP78m. The figures for the same period this year are nine deals (three trading IPOs), raising GBP810m, though much of this came from the dual London-Dublin listing of Eircom, raising GBP544m.

For its part, AIM had nine IPOs over the first quarter of 2003, raising GBP7.8m, whereas this year the 43 IPOs in Q1 have raised GBP513m. There were more IPOs in April.

According to a London Stock Exchange representative, AIM is doing its job as the market for fast-growing companies, and the main market is doing its job - which is to be the natural home for mature heavyweight companies.

Apart from the sheer volume of new deals, what tends to blur the AIM market/main market picture further is the size of the market capitalisation of some of the companies now camped on AIM. There are a handful of mining companies, in particular, that are worth in excess of GBP200m and one exceeds GBP300m. This is not your na've, aspiring small player that AIM was originally designed to be in business to accommodate.