The number of companies delisting from AIM has dropped by 18 per cent in the last quarter, according to a report by Trowers & Hamlins and UHY Hacker Young.

The number of companies delisting from AIM has dropped by 18 per cent in the last quarter, according to a report by Trowers & Hamlins and UHY Hacker Young.

In the second quarter of 2010, 36 companies delisted from AIM, down from 44 in the first quarter of the year.

However, the number of delistings still outnumbered new listings by three to one, with just 12 new companies joining in the last quarter. At the peak of the recession AIM companies were delisting at the rate of 70 per quarter.

Charles Wilson, partner at law firm Trowers & Hamlins, comments: ‘This further fall in delistings is great news but everyone is going to be a lot happier when the number of IPOs overtakes the number of delistings. Parity is still a little way away.’

The research also showed that the number of takeovers of AIM listed companies dropped by 40 per cent to just 12, compared to 20 the first quarter of the year.

Laurence Sacker, partner at accountants UHY Hacker Young, says: ‘With AIM share prices recovering so strongly over the last year, the bargain basement prices just aren’t so available. The opportunistic M&A deals seem to have eased off a little.’

Trowers & Hamlins is an international law firm with 121 partners and over 700 staff. The firm has three offices across the UK and five offices in the Middle East. The UHY Hacker Young Group is a UK accountancy network with 92 partners and 500 professional staff working from 19 locations around the country.