One of the least-talked about but most damaging side-effects of 2022’s ‘mini-Budget’, which turned financial markets on their heads for several weeks, has been the wave of smaller companies delisting, either through choice or out of necessity.

In some cases, the executive boards have decided the original argument for being a listed company no longer makes sense and firms are being taken private.

For many other companies, however, internal problems combined with an unwillingness by investors to continue financing them has forced companies to hoist the for sale flag or simply delist altogether.

The result is small-cap investors have an increasingly shallow, illiquid pool of companies to choose from, and the odds of those companies staying on the market have diminished, presenting greater risk.

HONEY, I SHRUNK THE SMIDS

In the last six months, dozens of firms have notified the stock exchange of their intention delist for one reason or another.

Unsurprisingly, consumer-facing businesses have struggled since the pandemic, and the number of retail and other firms being wound up and leaving the market continues to rise, but they are just the tip of the iceberg.

Bouncy-mattress maker Eve Sleep, which listed to great fanfare in 2017 with a market value of £140 million, collapsed last October with its equity valued at zero, although Bensons for Beds managed to swoop in and rescue the brand and the IP (intellectual property) from the administrators.

In The Style Group (ITS:AIM), the ‘disruptive digital womenswear fashion brand with an innovative influencer collaboration model’ which came to market in March 2021, netting founder Adam Frisby and majority owners Causeway Capital over £100 million, said in January this year it was carrying out a strategic review which could lead to the sale of the business, meaning it would delist from the market.

With the shares trading at 7p, investors who bought in the initial offering at 200p per share are staring at a loss of over 75% of their money.

Edinburgh-based meal delivery firm Parsley Box, which also floated in March 2021 with a market value of £80 million, said in November last year it would delist from AIM and re-register as a private business to ‘provide greater opportunities to raise additional capital in the future’, after investors lost every penny.

MAYBE THE FUTURE’S NOT SO BRIGHT AFTER ALL

It isn’t just retail and consumer companies which are finding the going tough.

Redcar-based paint and coatings firm Applied Graphene Materials (AGM:AIM), which raised £11 million when it was admitted to trading in 2013 and has raised many more millions from shareholders since, has just announced it is selling itself for the princely sum of $1.3 million and delisting its shares.

Graphene rocked the world of chemistry in 2004 when scientists discovered it had some remarkable and unique properties.

Just one atom thick and almost perfectly transparent, this ‘wonder material’ is 200 times stronger than steel yet six times lighter and conducts electricity much better than copper or any other commonly-available substance.

The UK firm, a world leader in ‘graphene nanoplatelet dispersions’ used across a number of industries, slowly burnt through investors’ cash in pursuit of its growth targets until Covid-19 upended its supply chains and those of its customers, leading to a sharp slowdown in orders and commercial development.

The firm set out plans for a US-focused fundraise and at the same time canvassed UK institutions in late 2022 to gauge demand for a potential financing.

In the firm’s own words, ‘neither exercise uncovered suitable demand with the lack of interest driven by investors unwilling to back early-stage pre-commercial revenue loss-making companies’.

MONEY’S TOO TIGHT TO MENTION

In the same vein, Glasgow-based digital chemistry data and software company Deepmatter quit the stock market this January after 16 years and re-registered as a private company.

The firm said the move would ‘provide greater opportunities to raise additional capital’ and was supported by its main shareholders.

It doesn’t take great detective skills to know that institutions are becoming increasingly selective about which firms they back and a great many smaller companies simply don’t pass muster.

Not making profits is one thing when interest rates and the discount rate are almost zero, but when government bonds are offering low-to-mid single-digit yields it is a different matter altogether.

As SourceBio International explained in a recent circular to shareholders, when it listed on AIM in October 2020 the idea was to accelerate growth of the business including a rapid scaling-up of its Covid-19 PCR testing capacity.

However, due to the poor performance of its shares the firm is unable to raise further funds for growth, while the directors believe the market is failing to put an accurate valuation on the business.

This, combined with an estimated annual cost of £500,000 resulting from being publicly-listed, not to mention the time and aggravation of dealing with shareholders, means there is little to no benefit to the firm of being on the stock market and so it is literally walking away.

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