Alternative Investment Market 'crucial to future of UK economy' and incentives must stay, LSE boss Dame Julia Hoggett says
Tax incentives which support vital investments in growing British companies must remain in place, the chief executive of the London Stock Exchange has urged.
Dame Julia Hoggett said removing incentives connected to supporting the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) would “deliberately starve the flame of economic growth”.
Dame Julia was speaking to members of the Quoted Companies Alliance (QCA) at the organisation’s annual dinner held at the British Museum in London on Thursday night.
Her speech was focused around the future of AIM, which is a sub-segment of the London Stock Exchange that helps growing businesses secure funding from the public markets to support their expansion plans. AIM, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary, tends to be made up of smaller firms with high-growth but more speculative potential than the established companies on the main market.
Thinktank New Financial has recently warned that AIM companies are facing an “almost existential threat” with hundreds delisting in recent years following falls in demand from retail and pension fund investors.
Dame Julia said AIM is “absolutely crucial to the future of the UK economy” with its singular purpose being “to provide ambitious, growing companies with access to capital, and investors - large and small – with access to opportunity”.
In last year’s Budget Chancellor Rachel Reeves removed an inheritance tax exemption for AIM stocks, setting a new 20 per cent rate on them from April 2026.
With the next Budget due in November, Dame Julia said the LSE is working “with urgency to encourage the government to provide certainty around the package of fiscal incentives that support investment in AIM.”
She said the current tax reliefs which support investment in AIM – such as the Enterprise Investment Scheme and Venture Capital Trusts – are “vital structures that ensure companies in the UK have access to the right level of investment when they most need it”.
She said: “These fiscal incentives matter if we are going to generate growth as an economy.
"We must recognise in our fiscal structures that to have economic growth, we must also incentivise those who wish to back these growing companies – particularly in the early stages.
"To deny the economy that investment – whether by taking away these fiscal incentives or by other means – is to choose to deliberately starve the flame of economic growth, of the oxygen it needs to truly spark to life.
"These incentives also allow companies to start small, then grow, ultimately scale and we hope, stay in the UK.
"Without them, our economy, and our markets, would risk tilting to a market that can only serve the largest, most liquid companies, denying smaller, innovative businesses the opportunity to thrive – harming competition and the UK’s ability to continue creating and growing great businesses.”
The Treasury was contacted for comment.