Stephen Lock, CIS Regional Director and Group Financial practice head for Mmd Corporate, Public Affairs and Public Relations Consultants joined with international financial advisors, lawyers and the London Stock Exchange at the first ever Polish conference about London’s AIM – one of Europe’s fastest-growing capital markets. The conference, held on the 8th March 2007, co-organised by Mmd and Financier under the patronage of the British Polish Chamber of Commerce bought together over 60 Polish business leaders to discuss the benefits of AIM for Polish companies seeking to raise capital.

The London Stock Exchange is an undisputable leader in Europe attracting listings of companies from all over the world. However, according to experts, London is increasingly seen as an alternative for Polish and CEE companies.

As a result of intensive promotional campaign by the LSE awareness of the Polish companies about the clear benefits of AIM is growing and Mmd – uniquely experienced at supporting CEE and CIS companies listing into London, has responded by strengthening its local Financial Practice and harnessing its group experience for the benefit of Polish and CEE clients. Speaking today Lock commented: “We have for some time supported local and regional listings in Central and Eastern Europe and have shown that through our regional network we are ideally placed to support dual listings across a number of CEE exchanges. Increasingly however we are seeing CEE and CIS companies recognize the benefits of London.”

“In the last 12 months we managed the global IPO communications campaigns for Rosneft and TMK and in the world of financial PR the Rosneft case is recognized as a watershed. This was the first time a global communications campaign for an international listing was led from the CEE/CIS region, rather than London or New York. We have this capability in Poland and expect more mandates of this kind in the coming months.”