AIM and NASDAQ still leading growth markets

As measured by their market indices and market capitalisation, Catalist, GEM and KOSDAQ have made considerable progress between 2005 and 2007, according to the new Global Growth Markets Guide produced by Grant Thornton International. The 2008 guide's analysis of the world's leading growth company markets reveals that at their current level of performance, there are exciting prospects ahead, particularly in the Asia Pacific region.

The guide also confirms that while junior markets in Asia have begun closing the gap and can offer impressive liquidity, the well established markets, AIM and NASDAQ, remain well ahead of the others in important respects. Both were able to attract large numbers of new listings to buoy their market capitalisation and both remain the best markets on which to raise funds. NASDAQ and AIM are much less volatile than their newer rivals, which is reassuring to investors and companies. AIM's only weaknesses were its comparative lack of liquidity and a slight fall in its main index.

The Mothers market is the only growth market to experience a fall in average total market capitalisation in 2007. It has been struggling by most measures, depressed by the Japanese economy.

The 2008 global growth markets guide is part of a series of capital markets guides that Grant Thornton International has compiled over the past seven years. It analyses the performance of the eight main global growth markets between 2005 and 2007. The guide can be downloaded from the publications section of www.gti.org.

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Notes to editors

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