Shareholders of the U.K.-based philatelic firm Stanley Gibbons have voted to leave London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) following pressure from the company’s main financial backer.
Phoenix Asset Management, which owns 58 per cent of Gibbons’ shares, warned in August it would consider pulling its financial support if shareholders resisted delisting from AIM (“Gibbons CEO resigns, firm plans to delist,” CSN Vol. 47 #9, Aug. 16, 2022).
The 166-year-old philatelic firm’s share price has fallen nearly 40 per cent in the past eight months and more than 80 per cent since 2016.
The announcements came eight months after Gibbons began offering fractional ownership shares in the iconic 1856 British Guiana one-cent magenta stamp, which the firm acquired at auction for about $10 million in June 2021.