Searching for growth amongst AIM’s New Issues

As I discussed in last month’s edition of Master Investor Magazine, AIM shares had a good year in 2016, with the FTSE AIM All Share Index rising by an impressive 14.2%. However, investors who got involved in AIM’s new issues did even better – although the two sets of performance statistics aren’t comparable directly due to timing differences associated with the newly listed companies.


Sifting through the stats, I count 43 new companies which listed on AIM in 2016 (excluding those which re-listed or moved from other markets). Investors who managed to get on board these new issues at their IPO price, and invested in every company, would have seen a superb average gain per share of 38.3%. The typical retail punter, who most likely wouldn’t have had access to the IPO fundraisings, could also have made decent gains, with the average rise of the 43 companies between close on the first day of dealings and the end of the year being 17.8%.

Big winners

The best performing IPO of 2016 by far was Blue Prism Group (LON:PRSM). The shares surged by a whopping 470.5% after the robotic process automation software business upped its trading expectations three times in a row. Also doing well was Franchise Brands (LON:FRAN), the owner of former AIM listed cleaning business Myhome, which I tipped on the Master Investor blog last August at 41.5p. The shares rose to 66p by the year end, double the IPO price of 33p. Close behind with a gain of almost 95% was upmarket chocolatier Hotel Chocolat (LON:HOTC), the shares rising to 288.5p, up from my tip at 189p in last June’s edition of the magazine….

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