Abcam wins AIM award

Bioscience specialist Abcam has been named AIM Company of the Year in the 10th annual Growth Company Awards, sponsored by Sharemark and organised by Growth Company Investor.

The Cambridge-based company, whose profits are booming on marketing antibodies through its own online catalogue for worldwide protein interactive research, took the trophy at last night’s awards ceremony at the Grocer’s Hall, London. Arbuthnot Securities, which recently raised £24.8 million for Xcite Energy, won the award for AIM Broker of the Year, chosen with other winners by an independent panel of judges from the worlds of finance, investment, law and media from a shortlist based on a survey of the heads of AIM and PLUS-quoted companies.

Brewin Dolphin, a major private client portfolio manager which recently launched a ‘pension calculator’ service to measure the impact on savers of the removal of pension tax credits, carried off the prize for AIM Adviser of 2010. The entrepreneurial Beaumont Cornish, founded and chaired by investment banker Roland Cornish, won the award for PLUS Adviser of the Year.

The prize for AIM Accountant of the Year went to Grant Thornton, whose recent successes include advising on the £20 million sale of international low-noise seismometer maker Guralp Systems. Solicitor Eversheds, which the other day helped investment research provider Morningstar UK with its £12 million purchase of Old Broad Street Research, was chosen as AIM Lawyer of 2010.

Investment group Elderstreet won the award for Venture Capital Trust Fund Manager of the Year for the performance of its Elderstreet VCT. The success of fund manager Deryck Noble-Nesbitt’s Close Special Situations fund earned it the prize for best Small-Cap Fund.

Francesca Raleigh’s insights into the workings of support services companies for broker Numis Securities won her the title of Analyst of the Year. Buchanan Communications, part of the WPP advertising behemoth, was named Financial Public Relations Company of 2010.

Celebrated Suffolk brewer Adnams, which has been lifting profits and beer sales in a tough market, took the trophy for PLUS Company of the Year.