First profit for Aquis as it takes on giant LSE

AQUIS has announced its firstever profit as it battles the London Stock Exchange to become the home of highgrowth companies.

Alasdair Haynes, founder and chief executive of the challenger exchange, said pulling in the £470,395 profit for 2020 was ‘like seeing your child going to university and getting a firstclass degree’.

Aquis, which floated on the stock market itself in 2018, is aiming to build an operation which makes it easier for small growth companies to list while providing more transparency for investors.

It uses technology to produce standardised document templates for companies that want to list – making it cheaper for the firm and easier for investors to read through.

And rather than making traders pay per transaction, it allows them to buy an Aquis subscription and trade as much as they like.

This means that Aquis is the largest provider of liquidity in Europe – meaning it is the place where traders will find it easiest to match themselves with buyers and sellers of shares, and get the best price. Previously, small individual investors were not given access to Aquis. Investment platforms were accustomed to the LSE, and reluctant to change.

But even this is starting to change – Barclays Smart Investor now has access to Aquis, IG will start using the exchange shortly and Haynes is confident that others will follow suit. Shares in Aquis climbed 7pc to 610p.