The Hindu Business Line : London SE sees strong Indian demand for AIM listings

New Delhi April 16 Indian Small and medium enterprises (SME) are likely to maintain the tempo on raising of growth capital through the Alternative Investments Market (AIM) in the current year too, a top London Stock Exchange (LSE) official has said.

In 2006, 10 India-related companies/investment funds raised about $2.6 billion, accounting for 10 per cent of the total $26 billion of capital raised from AIM in that year.

Second to UK

The amount of capital raised by Indian companies ranked second to the UK companies, which together raised the highest in 2006 in value terms.

As many as 16 India-related entities have over the last two years listed at the AIM, which is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and adopts a flexible regulatory approach for smaller growing companies to raise growth capital.

"We expect this year to be at par with the previous year (in the case of India-related companies and investment funds).

There is a very healthy pipeline of companies from India and in a range of sectors including real estate, media and mining that want to tap AIM". Mr Ibukun Adebayo, Manager-India & International Business Development, LSE, said here on Monday.

Mr Adebayo said that two India-related companies /investment funds are likely to raise in all about $200 million in the next two weeks.

"One is in media sector and the other is connected to real estate", he said, adding that both would look at investing into India through the fund route.