COMMENT
Looking For AIM's Big Winners

By Ed Bowsher (TMFArkle)
December 21, 2005

If you're searching for big winners, London's Alternative Investment Market (AIM) is often a good place to look. AIM was founded ten years ago as a nursery for young companies, and there are still plenty of small, fast-growing companies signing up.

What's more, the AIM market as a whole has thrashed the FTSE 100 over the last three years. The Footsie has risen 27% since 20 December 2002 whereas AIM has soared 70% over the same period.

That said, the Footsie may deliver a stronger relative performance in 2006, as this article describes. And small growth companies are always going to be riskier investments than the Footsie stalwarts. I know this from experience, I once owned shares in an AIM-listed company that went belly-up.

But with the higher risk comes the possibility of big rewards. Look at this list of the five best-performing AIM shares in 2005:

Company	Price 31 Dec 04	Price 20 Dec 05	% gain
Future Internet Technologies (LSE: FTI)	3.25p	31.88p	881
Speymill Group (LSE: SYG)	11.5p	49p	326
Crosby Capital (LSE: CSB)	21p	83p	295
Metals Exploration (LSE: MTL)	8.25p	31.56p	283
Plus Markets (LSE: PMK)	6.13p	23p	275

Those are exciting gains, so I'm going to carry on hunting for AIM-listed winners.

One place to start the hunt is the Champion Shares website. We have now recommended seven shares to subscribers, and three of them are AIM companies. All of the AIM recommendations have the potential to deliver decent gains without too much risk.

And there's more! Champion Shares editor, Maynard Paton, published research last week on five exciting companies which all listed on AIM during 2005.

Of the five, I particularly like Endace (LSE: EDA) and Leadcom Integrated Solutions (LSE: LEAD).

Endace is an IT network security company. It listed in June at 160p and the shares are now trading at 168p, valuing the company at £25m. Endace has developed its own software and hardware, and the company claims that these products substantially reduce the chance of a harmful network attack.

Sales have jumped from $2m to $7m between 2003 and 2005, and the company is profitable. Sign up for a FREE 30-day trial to Champion Shares and read Maynard's verdict on Endace.

Leadcom is also making money. It helps companies such as Nokia and Ericsson to build and maintain telecom systems in the developing world. A recent trading update suggested that Leadcom could generate earnings of 4p a share this year, which would put the company on a price/earnings ratio of just 12.5 at today's 50p share price.

So, if you sign up for a Champion Shares free trial, you'll be able to read about three AIM-listed shares which we've already recommended, plus research on five other AIM companies including Endace and Leadcom. And it won't cost you a penny!