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Ambitious pre-float investment company Niche Group, is lining up several deals and plans to attract foreign companies onto AIM.

Christopher Stainforth, former big-time investment banker and ex-boss of broker Durlacher, is chairman of Niche Group, which itself came to AIM last year. He says the company recently made a 215 per cent turn on Irish AIM float Ely Properties and is now talking to companies in life sciences, oil technology and other fields about putting in money ahead of flotations on London's junior stock market.



Niche, whose chief executive is lawyer Nicholas Greenstone, head of shell group Matisse Holdings, is looking abroad, too. Stainforth, a director of Rissi-focused conference and exhibition group Expomedia, says the Nasdaq market is far too costly ('$2 million as year') for small companies, while continental Europe's 'venture exchanges' have virtually ceased to function.

He says Niche Group can provide co-investors for companies it backs. His own private company Saphire (sic) can advise on deals, financing, restructuring and other issues.

What Niche also needs to do, Stainforth insists, is to lift the size of individual investments it can afford to make from an average £50,000 to £500,000 or more. The company, whose depressed share price of 0.75p values it at only £640,000, has some £300,000 cash and the plan is to raise funds in the market on the back of one of the company's projected deals.