Men that make you money

According to Growth Company Investor’s unique AIM Guide Database, AIM’s most prolific chairman is seasoned City figure David Williams, a dealmaker with heavyweight value-creation credentials, having overseen a meteoric rise in the value of Waste Recycling during a seven-year stint as chairman in the 1990s. He also acted as a rainmaker in the development of gaming group Talarius, which was sold for £137.2 million â“ 270p a share â“ last year. The shares were issued on AIM for 80p in 2005. Talarius was one of a spate of shells listed on AIM by Williams’s Marwyn investment house and used as growth platforms for proven management teams on consolidation missions. He is chairman at Zetar, Augean, Silverdell, Drury Lane Capital, Aldgate Capital and Entertainment One, a North American entertainment content and distribution counter picking up interest among investors, as well as Marwyn Value Investors 1 and 2.

Not everything Williams touches, however, turns to gold. Augean looks unloved at 108p having encountered teething problems since listing on AIM in 2004 at 125p. Nevertheless, the hazardous waste manager has long-term legislation-backed growth prospects and delivered a 42 per cent profits push to £2.1 million for the first half-year. Aldgate Capital and Drury Lane Capital remain on the hunt for deals and Silverdell has evolved, via acquisitions, into a leading supplier of asbestos contracting and consultancy services. The company’s forthcoming annual results will be at the ‘upper end’ of broker forecasts.

Acquisitive Zetar, floated as a confectionery and snack foods sector-focused shell at 100p in 2005, has sweetened investors’ palates and is now worth a cool £60 million at 556.5p. Williams’s backing of experienced food sector entrepreneur Ian Blackburn has paid off in style, with operating profits surging 55 per cent higher to £7.6 million on turnover lifted 64 per cent higher to £94.9 million last year.

Evans’ diagnostic empire
Another busy chairman worth following is David Evans, bestriding the AIM diagnostics world like a colossus and occupying the non-executive chair at no fewer than four businesses â“ BBI, Immunodiagnostic Systems (IDS), Omega Diagnostics and EpiStem.
BBI has proven a star turn, having joined AIM at 47p in 2004 and now nestling at a healthy 157p. Its share price strength â“ the shares have traded considerably higher â“ reflects a highly successful 2007 in which sales grew more than 50 per cent and profits surged 86 per cent north to £1.83 million. Moreover, the May acquisition of Theratase turned BBI into one of the world’s leading reagent and diagnostic test suppliers and is acting as a terrific boon to sales growth.

IDS is in equally rude health, having lifted pre-tax profits 110 per cent to £2.2 million in the year to March 2007. The shares, recently priced at 240p, are well ahead of their 2004 issue price of 51p, no-doubt assisted by Evans’s sure-footed direction from the top. Elsewhere, Omega, a provider of tests for specific infectious diseases that reversed into Quintessentially English in 2006, has had a mixed price performance, while stem cell company EpiStem is trading at a 33 per cent premium to the 124p at which £2.6 million was raised on AIM in April. It is on a mission to commercialise adult stem cells in the areas of oncology and gastrointestinal diseases.

Hickey in high spirits
In a buoyant mood at present is erstwhile investment banker and Lighthouse chairman David Hickey. He was recently able to announce record results from his cash-rich grouping of independent financial advisers along with a promise of a maiden dividend in 2008.

Hickey is non-executive chairman of collision repair chain Just Car Clinics, whose excellent interim results revealed profits up more than 40 per cent at £555,000 and the commencement of dividend payments. Asset and venture finance specialist General Capital recently delivered another strong set of first-half figures that belie a share price currently in the doldrums. Pre-tax profits surged from £100,000 to £2.8 million and earnings rocketed to 11p (0.26p) per share.

Investors interested in a more volatile ride might follow the entrepreneurial fortunes of Hickey’s fellow Irishman, John Teeling, who oversees machinations from the chair at six resources firms including Pan Andean Resources, Persian Gold, Petrel Resources, Connemara Mining and West African Diamonds.

A Rose by any other name
Booker chairman Richard Rose (number 7 in our table) sold electrical business WF Electrical, a fully listed electrical distributor at which he was chief executive, to Hagemeyer in 2000 for a princely sum and delivered substantial shareholder value at AC Electrical Wholesale, which was sold to Wolseley in 2006. His present diverse range of ventures includes Kiotech International, an agriculture and aquaculture technology group that recently moved into profit for the first time, Nanoscience Inc and Felix Group. Investors following him are hoping he can repeat his past success.