August saw a total of £161.1 million raised via new and further issues, with £87 million raised through new issues alone.

August saw a total of £161.1 million raised via new and further issues, with £87 million raised through new issues alone. A respectable figure, it stands against the £156.8 million raised in July and the £169.5 million raised in June.

To date, a total of £504.02 million has been raised in new issues this year, compared with £548.9 million raised in August of last year. The 2011 figures include a particularly dismal January and February, when only £1 million and £530,000 were raised respectively. A total of £3.28 billion was, however, secured via secondary issues, a slight fall from the £3.38 billion of last year.

This month I spoke to Richard Proska, CEO of MoneySwap, who talked to me after crossing the Chinese border.

The company operates a money exchange business that allows users to trade currency, with most of its customers being Asian workers who use the service to send money back home. MoneySwap raised £3.05 million at 5p a share, valuing the company at £20 million at the time of its admission to AIM.

Proska enthuses that the business offers ‘swift transfers at competitive prices’, adding that it also offers a peer-to-peer service for companies in the UK. ‘For example, if you were a manufacturer in the UK and you had suppliers in Asia, you could pay them using MoneySwap at a fraction of the cost of a telegraphic transfer and get a better rate than you would from a currency exchange,’ he says.

RESPECTABLE MARKET

Regarding the reasons for an AIM listing, fans of the junior market will be delighted to hear that Proska insists that ‘in Asia, an AIM listing is highly respected as people know that to list on AIM you must meet many stringent requirements’, adding that a listing will ‘build trust in our customer base’.

An interesting company, MoneySwap is appealing to a niche yet numerically substantial market. Unfortunately, however, it is unlikely to benefit from the nerves around Chinese companies that exist at the moment following a wave of scandals in the US at businesses such as China Agritech.

GREEN DREAMER

One word that few people can have escaped over the past few years is the word ‘green’. I am of course not referring to the colour itself, but the use of the word to refer to an environmentally friendly project.

One business hoping to profit from such concerns is Ceres Media International. One of the smaller companies to have joined of late, it raised £1 million at 18p a share upon admission. The company develops a range of environmentally friendly printing materials for use in advertising such as billboards and phone kiosks, for what is known as the ‘outdoor advertising market’.

Ceres is led by accountant and founder Alex Dowdeswell. He explains that the business came about due to the ‘large amount of material that ends up in landfill every day’. He notes that it started with ‘beta tests’ with clients such as London Zoo and English Heritage, adding that some of its work is currently in the zoo’s rainforest exhibit.

With an office in Shoreditch, East London, Ceres recently made its maiden sales having spent several years in the development stage, reporting revenues of £48,000 in July. The company notes that its products ‘have been trialled by a number of high- profile retailers and brand owners including supermarkets, coffee shops and fast-food chains.’

Looking ahead, Dowdeswell wants Ceres to expand into the ‘enormous’ printing market, with plans to sell to territories including Sweden. A business still in the early stages, I would advise giving the company some time before investing in the shares.