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Of the £7bn total, there were record secondary fundraisings on AIM in Q2 - £4.6bn raised compared with the previous record of £2.4bn in Q2 2006. At the end of June 2007, 1,656 companies had listed on AIM over the 12 month period; this consisted of 1,337 UK companies and 319 international, according to research by Deloitte.

James Ferguson, Capital Markets partner at Deloitte, commented: “AIM is now a well established international market with over 1,600 companies listed. These findings indicate that, contrary to the bad press that a number of AIM companies have received over the last year, there are many established AIM companies coming back to the market and persuading investors to put more money into them. The number of companies listed on AIM is smaller, 84 in Q2 compared to 108 in the same period last year, indicating bigger companies are now coming to market.”

Other key findings:

• Delek Global Real Estate was the largest company coming to market, with a market capitalisation over £500m (£519m) on flotation
• After a long period where international companies were the main contributors to growth in the market, the market capitalisation of new UK based admissions in the quarter was actually higher than the same period last year (£4.4bn compared to £3.8bn in Q2 2006)
• June 2007 was the highest ever month for fund raised with £3.1bn raised compared with the previous record of £2.49bn in December 2006
• The AIM All share index was up 17% in the half year to 30 June 2007 (the All Share has dropped by around 14% to the beginning of August in line with the downturn of other worldwide markets)