Could Cardiff be stocks and shares centre?

CARDIFF could have its own stock exchange - if a Cardiff-based academic's research is put in place.

Professor Robert Huggins, of Uwic's Cardiff School of Management, is investigating the possibility of creating a stock exchange for Welsh companies to list themselves on.

His research, which is being funded by the Welsh Assembly Government, will look at how small countries around the world operate stock exchanges as well as how such an exchange could practically work.

There are about 20 Welsh companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, most on the junior Alternative Investment Market rather than the main exchange. Wales' only blue chip company is Admiral Insurance, which was added to the FTSE 100 index of the UK's leading shares earlier this year.

Prof Huggins said flotation on the London exchange was often too expensive for companies in Wales, with entrepreneurs often not seeing the benefits for their business in going public.

He said: "Wales has a paucity of companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, and the capitalisation of those companies listed there is relatively low. Companies in Wales are not really getting capital from a private market because venture capital statistics are just as low.

"The London Stock Exchange has become increasingly internationalist in recent years and I'm not sure it's really serving the UK and the UK regions outside the south-east of England that well."