伦敦二板市场厌倦“外来户”？
Silicon Valley comes late to Aim
Silicon Valley has woken up to Aim - but the US technology companies keen to join London's junior market may find they have overslept, for their enthusiasm has surfaced just as Aim investors are losing interest in overseas companies.
The supply of companies wanting to list on Aim looks plentiful in the wake of London Stock Exchange promotional tours to countries as diverse as India, Sweden and Israel.
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US companies have the additional spur of trying to avoid the burden of Sarbanes-Oxley and other US regulatory pressures. But the money available to back them is simply not there.
"Why the hell should UK small cap fund managers finance the small cap sector of the world?" asked one fund manager.
"There is a fundamental mismatch between thecompanies wanting to come and the resources to back them."
Aim was founded in 1995 in order to provide capital for small, fast-growing UK companies.
It survived the dotcom crash partly because it had already established a broad range of companies before the flood of technology businesses.
However, since 2001 UK investors have been taking money away from the small cap sector.
Figures from the Investment Management Association, the representative body for the UK's asset management industry, show that net redemptions from small cap unit trusts have grown steadily, from ￡67m ($125m) in 2001 to ￡225m last year. So far this year redemptions have reached almost ￡300m.
As Andrew Buchanan of the UK's Close Beacon Investment Fund wrote recently in the annual report: "If Aim internationalisation is to be sustained, then a stable of international investors with a long-term-perspective is required."
This is not to say that the institutions that back small cap stocks are against overseas companies joining the market.
"In many ways I'm a huge fan of Aim," says Andrew Crossley of Invesco Perpetual.
"Fast forward 10 years and it might have become the growth equity of the market of the future. But to do that it needs US pension funds, Italian life insurers and Japanese banks allocating capital to the market."
At the moment, however, the experience of one Californian company is sufficient to illustrate why investors in the UK are becomingly increasingly reluctant to buy into overseas aspirants to Aim.
Solar Integrated Technologies, based in Los Angeles, appeared to have all the right credentials when it floated in May 2004 at 171p a share.
The company had a well-established business - with customers including Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart - making and supplying solar-panelled roofing for commercial premises.
It wanted to raise money to build another plant in east Germany to supply the European market. Institutional backing came from Goldman Sachs and Fidelity, among others.
The shares peaked earlier this year at 365p. But they have collapsed in the wake of the company's failure at its annual meeting on July 13 to win backing from shareholders for the issue of 20m new shares to raise further working capital.
The company is incorporated in Delaware, and was therefore required to give shareholders only 10 days' notice of the need for more funds. UK companies, however, have to give shareholders 21 days' notice, which led to criticism that Solar simply did not give itself enough time to raise shareholder support.
There was more bad news last month when the company announced that losses widened from $1.6m to $11.2m, despite reporting a 7 per cent rise in revenues to $15.6m.
There are other companies that have disappointed the market, including Burst Media, a global internet advertising company based in Boston. In April it placed 42.8m shares at 82p on behalf of selling shareholders - mainly US venture capital backers.
On September 11 it warned that - in spite of a confident trading update on July 20 - "it has now become clear to the board that the expected increase in revenue will take longer to materialise than originally expected." The shares closed yesterday at 20?p.
Such developments make it unsurprising that Russian telecoms group Teleset Networks is arriving on Aim this week via an introduction.
The company, based in Kazan in the Republic of Tatarstan, wants to establish a record in London before raising new funds.
But against the backdrop that is now unrolling, the Russian company may find it difficult to build up investor confidence.
Mr Crossley says: "I would be staggered if many non-UK businesses could raise money on Aim over thenext six months or so."
伦敦二板市场厌倦“外来户”？
硅
谷(Silicon Valley)认识到伦敦另类投资市场(Aim)的重要性了。但是，这些渴望到伦敦二板市场上市的美国科技公司也许会发现，自己觉醒得太晚了，因为在它们显露出热情之时，Aim投资者正对海外企业渐渐失去兴趣。
在伦敦证交所(London Stock Exchange)完成了到印度、瑞典、以色列等不同国家的推介之旅后，想在Aim上市的企业看起来“货源充足”。
美国企业寻求到Aim上市还有另外一个动力：规避《萨班斯-奥克斯利法》(Sarbanes-Oxley Act)的负担和美国的其它监管压力。但是，根本就没有资金支持它们到伦敦上市。
一位基金经理人问道：“为什么英国的小盘股基金经理就该为世界上的小盘股提供资金呢？”
“想来的企业和支持它们的资源根本就不相匹配。”
Aim建立于1995年，旨在为增长迅速的英国中小企业提供资金。
它安然度过了网络泡沫破裂的时期，部分原因在于，在科技企业泛滥之前，就已经有多种多样的企业在此上市。
然而，自2001年开始，英国投资者开始不断从小盘股行业撤资。
英国资产管理业代表机构“投资管理协会”(Investment Management Association)的数据显示，小盘股信托基金的净赎回额一直在稳步增长，去年已从2001年的6700万英镑（合1.25亿美元）增至2.25亿英镑。今年到目前为止，赎回额已达到近3亿英镑。
英国Close Beacon投资基金的安德鲁?布坎南(Andrew Buchanan)近日在年报中写道：“若想让Aim的国际化维持下去，就需要大量有远见的国际投资者加入。”
这并不是说，支持小盘股的机构反对海外企业到这个市场上市。
景顺基金(Invesco Perpetual)的安德鲁?克罗斯利(Andrew Crossley)表示：“在许多方面，我都是Aim的狂热支持者。”
“再过10年，它也许就成了未来市场的成长股。但是要做到这点，需要美国的养老基金、意大利的寿险公司和日本的银行把资金投入这个市场。”
不过在目前，一家加州企业的经历便足以说明，为何英国投资者对有志在Aim上市的海外企业越来越不买账。
太阳集成科技公司(Solar Integrated Technologies)总部位于美国洛杉矶，它在2004年5月以每股171便士的价格上市时，似乎拥有一切应有的资格。
该公司有一项十分成型的业务――为商业建筑生产和提供太阳能屋顶，其客户包括可口可乐(Coca-Cola)和沃尔玛(Wal-Mart)。
公司希望筹资在德国东部兴建另一家工厂，为欧洲市场供货。为其提供支持的机构包括高盛(Goldman Sachs)和富达(Fidelity)等。
今年早些时候，该公司股价升至365便士的峰值。但在7月13日的年度股东会议上，该公司增发2000万股新股、筹集更多营运资金的提议未能获得股东支持，随后股价便大幅下挫。
该公司注册地是美国的特拉华州，因此如果需要更多资金，只需提前10天通知股东。但英国企业则必须提前21天通知股东，这招致了外界对太阳集成科技公司的批评，认为它根本就没有留给自己足够时间来赢得股东支持。
上个月传出了更多坏消息。该公司宣布，尽管收入上升7%，达到1560万美元，但亏损却由160万美元增至1120万美元。
令市场失望的还有其他一些公司，其中包括总部设在波士顿的国际互联网广告公司Burst Media。今年4月，该公司代表献售股东(selling shareholder)以每股82便士的价格配售了4280万股股票，献售股东主要是美国的风险资本家。
尽管该公司7月20日发布了乐观的最新交易数据，但在9月11日，公司发出警告称：“董事会目前清楚地认识到，实现预期收入增长所需时间要长于最初的预期。”该公司股价近日一度收于20.5便士。
有了诸如此类的事态发展，俄罗斯电信集团Teleset Networks本周采用“介绍”(introduction)方式在Aim上市，就不足为奇了。
Teleset Networks希望先在伦敦建立记录，然后再募集新的资金。该公司总部位于鞑靼斯坦共和国的喀山。
但在目前的背景下，这家俄罗斯公司可能会发现，自己难以树立投资者的信心。
克罗斯利表示：“如果在未来6个月左右的时间，许多非英国企业都能在Aim募集到资金，那我会感到吃惊的。”
