After a very strong Q2 for AIM, Q3 for the main part was equally impressive. Performance was particularly strong in July and August for fundraising on AIM; however September (traditionally one of the quietest months of the year) produced the lowest fundraising since 2005, at £230m according to research compiled by Deloitte, the business advisory firm.

James Ferguson, Capital Markets partner at Deloitte, commented: “The impact of the global stock market turmoil has affected all the stock exchanges for the month of September. However, to this point the AIM market continued to demonstrate strong growth year on year as shown by the total amount of fundraising on AIM in Q3, which has increased by 45% at £3.3bn compared to the same time last year.”

“Underlying these strong fundraising statistics is a shift in the mix of fundraising with secondary fundraising representing £1.6bn or almost half of the total, compared to £0.5bn in Q3 2006, as institutions have shifted their focus somewhat,  from new equity to investing further into existing successful AIM companies.”

Other key findings:

• Q3 has seen more companies come to AIM of market capitalisation less than £10m, than greater than 10m (49 versus 30) which reverses the trend over the last twelve months of fewer but larger companies coming to the market
• The market cap of international companies coming to AIM this year has been lower than that experienced in 2006.  In Q3 2007 the combined market cap of international companies was £0.9bn compared with £3.4bn in Q3 2006.
• The AIM All Share Index has continued to increase in Q3 and is at 1,230 at the end of September, 5% from the previous quarter and 23% in the year to date

Ferguson, added: “Despite the concerns, AIM continues to post impressive results. Whilst the current market turmoil has undoubtedly delayed a number of transactions as well as causing some companies coming to market to scale back their fundraising ambitions, the results show that for high quality companies the markets remain open for both primary and secondary issues. Q4 is unlikely to see the record levels of fundraising seen in 2006, but will be an important pointer as to how we expect AIM to develop in 2008 as current market concerns continue to persist."

About Deloitte
In this press release references to Deloitte are references to Deloitte & Touche LLP which is among the country’s leading professional services firms, providing audit, tax, consulting and corporate finance services. Deloitte & Touche LLP is the United Kingdom member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (‘DTT’), a Swiss Verein whose member firms are separate and independent legal entities.  Neither DTT nor any of its member firms has any liability for each other’s omissions.  Services are provided by member firms or their subsidiaries and not by DTT.  Deloitte & Touche LLP is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.  The information contained in this press release is correct at the time of going to press.