Brian Basham is no stranger to street fighting in the City of London. For the former journalist, PR man and chairman of research house Equity Development, nearly five decades of entrepreneurial success, high jinks and legal battles have only fuelled his affection for British business.
Basham first made a name for himself as an uncompromising PR adviser in the 1980s, at a time when mega-takeovers and corporate conflict were the order of the day. These days he tends to leave the high profile wrangles to others but the gloves are most definitely off in his efforts to get more cash flowing into growing companies.
Basham left school at 16 and went on to serve an apprenticeship as an electrician before starting work in the City as a journalist for the Daily Mail. He went on to work for the Daily Telegraph and the Times and later as an analyst at a stock broker until finally breaking in to public relations in the early 1970s. He later set up and floated his own PR firm, Broad Street Group, which earned a formidable reputation during the 1980s for advising blue chip clients involved in mergers and acquisitions. He is currently chairman of Equity Development, White Star Property plc and Global Pay and Purchase Ltd.
Ten years ago Basham produced a report entitled Tomorrow’s Giants with the former Treasury official Craig Pickering, which took a close look at the state of the smaller quoted company market. Late last year he reprised that report, at the request of small company cheerleader the Quoted Companies Alliance. His conclusion is that the environment for small-cap investing in the UK needs a complete re-think.
In essence, Basham is calling for the government and market regulators to pull away the cotton wool rules designed to protect private investors from plunging cash into phoney investments. He thinks new technologies and new media in particular, offer a more even playing field for retail share buyers and that new rules should instead focus on policing a more open market.
Brian, given your assessment of the market do you think that enough is being done by the government and market regulators to encourage private investors to back smaller quoted companies?
No, I think that government is out of date in the treatment of private investors and in its understanding of how news can be disseminated. In…
