ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to investigate the connections between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and junior stock markets. Do SMEs access market-based financing more easily, thanks to the Alternative Investment Market (AIM)? What types of support does this market offer to listed companies? The chapter analyses how the AIM operates and the characteristics of those companies admitted to this market sheds light on the advantages and limitations of this market model for those businesses concerned, as well as for investors, stock market authorities and policy-makers. Moreover, the chapter reveals two significant transformations that affect the very nature of stock markets, with the first being the heightened reliance on private decentralised regulation and the second, the growing influence of practices originating from within private equity firms. In 2007, the AIM was at the centre of a controversy that opposed on one side managers of the American financial markets and on the other side those of the London Stock Exchange.
