John Thain, chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange, on Friday criticised the Alternative Investment Market in London for its lack of stringent corporate governance requirements for listed companies and said it needed to continue raising standards to avoid damaging the City’s reputation.
Mr Thain, speaking at a media briefing at the World Economic Forum in Davos, said he believed that the London Stock Exchange was changing its approach “particularly in relation to Aim, where they did not have any standards at all and anyone could list. I think they are starting to tighten up, and they should.”
Mr Thain said that neither the LSE’s main market nor Aim, which is its market for growth companies, had such a strict approach to corporate governance as US exchanges such as the NYSE and Nasdaq. He believed that London “had to be careful not to damage its reputation by allowing in companies that are not well run”.
The NYSE has been losing market share in the listing of international companies to the LSE and there is widespread concern among politicians and bankers in the US that companies have been put off by its legal framework and the burden of complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
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