Should you invest in Aim?

London’s Alternative Investment Market is attracting huge numbers of foreign firms. This means more opportunities for investors keen to exploit the tax breaks. But there are pitfalls too, warns Tom Bulford.

This month, another gaggle of debutantes take their first steps onto the dance floor of the Alternative Investment Market (Aim).

When it was founded ten years ago, Aim was supposed to be the place where young, entrepreneurial British firms, lacking the required qualifications for the London Stock Exchange's (LSE) main market, could hook up with bold investors happy to take a little extra risk. In recognition of this useful contribution to the domestic economy, nice tax breaks were, and still are, available for investors.

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Tom worked as a fund manager in the City of London and in Hong Kong for over 20 years. As a director with Schroder Investment Management International he was responsible for £2 billion of foreign clients' money, and launched what became Argentina's largest mutual fund. Now working from his home in Oxfordshire, Tom Bulford helps private investors with his premium tipping newsletter, Red Hot Biotech Alert.