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Over 90% of Top 100 AIM Companies Fail to Meet Rule 26 Compliance Four Weeks Before Deadline
23/07/2007
With only four weeks left to comply with the Rule 26 website regulations, only 6 of the top 100 AIM companies’ websites currently achieve full compliance, according to a survey carried out by Investis. Fewer than a third of the companies surveyed achieve a compliance score greater than 50% and one company still does not have a website!
Rule 26, part of the London Stock Exchange’s revised AIM Rules for Companies – a set of regulatory requirements which must be met by all companies quoted on the AIM market – stipulates that all AIM companies must have a website within which they maintain specific information. Companies were given six months to bring their websites into line with this rule, which comes into force on 20th August 2007.
Investis carried out a detailed compliance audit of the websites of the 100 biggest AIM companies, assessing them against 28 criteria derived from Rule 26. The results show that at this late stage, and even amongst the largest AIM companies, there is still a long way to go. Most companies do provide a basic level of investor relations content but it appears that the majority continue to overlook much of the detail which the regulator has deemed necessary.
Charles Hamlyn, a director at Investis, commented, "We have seen some confusion in the market recently about what compliance with Rule 26 means. But we were surprised to find how far companies still have to go with only four weeks until the 20th August deadline."
He added: "A company's website really should be the most authoritative source of information about the company for investors. Rule 26 is a bare minimum from a communications perspective; companies need to see beyond this and recognise the important role that the website plays in attracting potential investors and in reinforcing their value proposition to existing shareholders.”
For more information about the contents and findings of the report, please contact Caroline Surujpaul on +44 (0)20 7038 9058 or email caroline@investis.com
An article containing the results of this research has been published on FT.com. To view the article, please visit http://www.ft.com/cms/s/b2492398-38b4-11dc-bca9-0000779fd2ac.html
About Investis
Investis are the leading specialists in helping quoted companies use the Internet for online corporate communications. Our services range from designing, building, hosting and managing corporate and investor websites, to online annual reports and webcasting.
We work with over 400 companies in 11 European countries, from the smallest companies to the largest, including more than 50% of the FTSE 100 and 30% of the FTSE Eurotop 300 and a large proportion of European and AIM-quoted companies.
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