Seymour Pierce, PrimePartners target Asian firms for AIM

Reuters

SINGAPORE, March 15 (Reuters) - British broker Seymour Pierce and Singapore's boutique advisory PrimePartners have joined forces to help Asian firms seeking to list their shares on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market (AIM).

The two firms said in a statement on Thursday that PrimePartners Corporate Finance has won two mid-sized AIM initial public offering mandates, to raise a total of US$70 million, with the first one set for a late May launch.

"The first two are substantial mainland Chinese companies in growth industries," PrimePartners Chairman Quek Peck Lim said.

Quek said that of the nearly 2,000 mainland Chinese firms listed worldwide at the end of 2006, a quarter are listed offshore.

"Of these, 350 are on the stock exchange of Hong Kong, 113 are on the Singapore Exchange and 45 in London," he said.

"The bulk of these companies were listed within the last five years. We expect more to follow their lead."

Stock exchanges in Asia, Europe, and the United States are competing for Chinese listings and AIM has successfully attracted many foreign companies because it is more lightly regulated than markets in the United States.

The new venture will also be in direct competition with the Singapore Exchange (SGX), which lists the stocks of more than 100 Chinese companies and intends to attract more foreign firms to list their shares in Singapore.

SGX Chief Executive Hsieh Fu Hua is a large shareholder in PrimePartners. A spokeswoman for the exchange had no immediate comment on his roles at SGX and PrimePartners.

Seymour Pierce, which is among the top three nominated advisers (Nomads) in AIM and focuses mainly on small and mid-sized companies, has an index tracking the 45 China firms trading on AIM.

Nearly 400 companies were listed on AIM in 2006, raising 11 billion pounds ($21.3 billion).