AIM: Another firm bails out of listed status due to £250,000 admin costs

Scirocco, an AIM-listed operation, will delist due to high admin costs and what it describes as limited flexibility on the public markets

Scirocco Energy, an AIM-listed investing company focused on green energy, is set to cancel its listing in favour of the “flexibility” of private ownership.

Bosses said this morning that the “considerable cost and management time and the legal and regulatory burden associated with maintaining the Company’s admission to trading on AIM are, in the Board’s opinion, disproportionate to the benefits of the Company’s continued admission.”

The firm reckons it will save at least £250,000 per annum as a result of leaving the market and the associated recurring administrative and adviser costs.

The energy play will go through a members voluntary liquidation and re-register as a private company.

“The Board believes that the requirements and associated costs of the Company maintaining its public company status will be difficult to justify and that the Company will benefit from the more flexible requirements and lower overhead costs associated with private limited company status,” the firm’s statement read this morning.

The number of firms listed on AIM has cratered 30 per cent from 1,104 to just 742 since 2015.

Last year alone, AIM suffered 78 cancellations and a further 15 hit in the first two months of this year.

Alasdair Haynes, chief executive of challenger stock market Aquis, said: “The London stock exchange is all about winning today’s unicorns, but AIM should also be about getting growth businesses. The problem that I think they have is that their model really hasn’t changed for 30 years.”

According to data from the London Stock Exchange, just ten new firms have floated on AIM since the start of 2023.