DevDosh Ltd believes that Great Britain as a nation has a multitude of achievements that it can be proud of from world renowned scientists and mathematicians like Sir Isaac Newton, John Napier and Sir Francis Bacon to the father of the internet Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
The United Kingdom has always been innovators when it came to field of modern finance as well.
The London Stock Exchange has been in existence for over 300 years and in that time they have been the financial might of many of the great events of our time.
When America wanted to build its railways the LSE was there to help, when the world needed to look for oil and minerals the LSE stepped in, and when the time came to finding green energy yeah you guessed it along came the London Stock Exchange.
Coming back to the modern financial markets once again it was the LSE that lead the way, when in 1995 they established the Alternative Investment Market for a way to help the small companies with big potential.
Many did not believe this could be done due to the amount of failures in the past of other global exchanges, but where others failed the LSE succeeded.
Devdosh Ltd also believed that with humble beginnings of just 10 companies the AIM market has helped 3,700 companies in 90 countries and is worth 95Bn GBP, quite the achievement and something to proud of I am sure you will agree.
The best part is that the AIM has never looked back and gone from strength to strength over the last 22 years, culminating in the AIM outperforming both FTSE 100 and 200 so far this year.
- The average value of new companies listed has grown from 17 million to 88 million
- Capital raised from 5 Million to 30 million
This shows Aim provides long-term institutional capital and commands long-term corporate and investor confidence.
Regardless of all the successes AIM has had there will always be those who wish to rain on the parade usually from their competitors and in the form of Aim is “insufficiently” or “self” regulated.
The Alternative Investment Market is backed up with help from the London Stock Exchange, The Financial Conduct Authority and other regulatory bodies.
Each year there are almost 200 alleged rule breaches.
If there is any suspicious activity suspected the company will be on the receiving end of a thorough investigation and any punishment deemed necessary will be handed out.
What needs to be said is although there are companies that fail on AIM this is also true for private companies and companies on other exchanges.
The investor should be fully aware of the risk involved and the responding returns.
AIM is publishing its latest discussion paper with objective of finding the views of the people that count the ones that allow the market to function, the companies, investors and advisors, on topics ranging from admission criteria to corporate governance requirements.
Both the AIM and high growth companies punch well above their weight as far as what they bring to the UK economy.
- 15 Billion to UK GDP
- 430,000 jobs
And with as little as a one percent increase this rises to nearly 600,000 UK jobs.
Patient or long-term capital providers are increasingly supporting each other throughout the finance “escalator” from angel finance to venture capital and crowdfunding through to public markets like Aim.
But the UK equity finance eco-system must develop further.
DevDosh Ltd sees Eighty per cent of SME financing still comes in the form of debt, this is ill-suited for high growth businesses which need to invest their capital in innovating and growing, rather than servicing a loan every month.
This calls for long-term capital like equity be it from crowdfunding, venture capitalists or investment funds.
The Capital stream should be from investor direct to entrepreneur.
Let’s give these companies what they need and continue the constant improvement of one of the true gems of the Emerald Isle, the Alternative Investment Market
For more information on alternative investments visit DevDosh Ltd today.