Small firms to get market

THE Irish Stock Exchange’s specialist market for smaller companies will open for business next month, it emerged yesterday.

The Irish Enterprise Exchange (IEX) will be modelled on London's highly-successful Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and will offer smaller companies a route to seek equity funding with fewer regulations and lower costs than a full listing.

Plans for the new market were first announced earlier this year. The stock exchange said it hoped to attract small and medium- sized companies looking to list for the first time, as well as companies with a full listing that wanted to cut costs as well as Irish AIM-quoted companies looking for a dual listing.

The new market will result in the scrapping of Dublin's three minor markets the technology- based ITEQ, the developing companies market (DCM) and the exploration securities market (ESM).

The ITEQ lost its appeal after the post-dotcom bubble decline in technology stocks. The DCM has been unpopular with many smaller companies and lost business to the AIM, which offered lighter regulation and access to a wider investor base.

The AIM attracted a large number of Irish companies going public for the first time.

Recent Irish additions to the market include Calyx, the telecoms business founded by Corkman Maurice Healy; EiRx Therapeutics, the pharmaceutical research company based at Cork Airport's business park; Kerry travel software group CNG; and Wexford- based Clearstream Technologies, a developer of medical devices.

Housebuilder Abbey also moved to the AIM recently, after giving up its full listing in London to save money and appeal to specialist fund managers with a focus on the AIM.

Exploration company Ormonde Mining said yesterday it too would move from Dublin's exploration market to the IEX and would also seek a new listing on the AIM. The company plans to raise more than €4 million through the issue of fresh equity.

"The board believes that admission to AIM will increase visibility and awareness of Ormonde," the company said. The company is managed from Navan, Co Meath but is involved in six gold projects in Spain.