London’s junior Aim market received a Christmas gift to round off a tough year yesterday with the float of Amcomri.
The group focuses on the acquisition and enhancement of specialist engineers and its listing comes after Aim shrank to its smallest size by number of companies in 23 years.
Amcomri raised £12m from an initial public offering to finance its ongoing growth strategy. The placing price was 55p, with 21.8m new shares issued, giving it an initial market cap of £39.5m.
The company’s co-founder and non-executive deputy chairman is Paul McGowan who has worked in corporate finance and restructuring for over 20 years.
He serves as executive chairman of Hilco Capital, the restructuring and asset-based lending firm.
McGowan has particular expertise in stressed or distressed situations, including transactions involving HMV, Habitat and Allders department stores in the UK.
Boost: Amcomri focuses on the acquisition and enhancement of specialist engineers and its listing comes after Aim shrank to its smallest size by number of companies in 23 years
Investors seemed excited about the opportunity offered with Amcomri, pushing the share price up to 57.5p at the close on its first day of trading.
The London benchmarks were preoccupied by central bank caution in the face of stubborn inflation.
But traders took some comfort from a lower than expected US inflation gauge published yesterday.
The FTSE 100 index recovered from sharp earlier losses to end down by just 0.3 per cent, or 20.71 points, at 8084.61, and the FTSE 250 index ended up 0.3 per cent, or 51.31 points, at 20450.69.
Water companies led the retreat, after being among the few gainers in the previous session, as analysts chewed over the latest Ofwat pricing determinations.
United Utilities fell 1.7 per cent, or 18.5p, to 1045.5p and Severn Trent lost 2.3 per cent, or 58p, to 2516p as analysts at Goldman Sachs cut their price targets. Though by contrast analysts at Barclays raised targets for both.
Elsewhere, JD Sports shed 2.2 per cent, or 2.1p, to 95p in tandem with a drop by Nike after its second quarter earnings, with the US sportswear giant seeing a significant revenue drop in the third quarter and saying it would take time and money to turn the business round.
And oil majors suffered as crude prices retreated amid economic growth caution and oversupply concerns, with BP ending up flat at 379.05p and Shell down 0.5 per cent, or 11p, to 2394.5p.
But on the upside, in a firmer real estate sector, Segro rose 2 per cent, or 13.6p, to 695.6p after analysts at Citigroup reinitiated coverage of the warehouses group with a ‘buy’ rating.
Services group Rentokil Initial also gained, up 2 per cent, or 8p, to 399.6p as investors focused on recent stake building by US activist investor SW Investment Management.
On the FTSE 250, tech firm Raspberry Pi was also lifted by stake building moves, gaining 15.8 per cent, or 80p, to 588p as a US investment firm disclosed a 3.59 per cent holding.
IP Group added 2.9 per cent, or 1.5p, to 52.8p after two quoted companies in its life sciences portfolio, Intelligent Ultrasound and Abliva, agreed to cash takeover offers.
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