Forgive Current Account for not getting too enthused about Horizon Technology's flotation on the Dublin and London markets next Monday. Nothing to do with Horizon itself - it's a fine company and a credit to founder Samir Naji - but companies should only go on the market if their owners are prepared to release a realistic amount to create adequate liquidity.
As things stand, less than 40 per cent of Horizon will be floating freely on the market. That, of course, is well above the 25 per cent minimum required for a free float, but it means that buying Horizon stock is going to be extraordinarily difficult.
Word in the market has it that the 5.2 million shares on offer were oversubscribed five or six times, and that shows there was enough interest from institutional investors for Mr Naji to sell off a lot more of his shares.
The Horizon boss's stake has fallen from 67 per cent to 58 per cent, leaving plenty of scope for him to provide a more liquid market in the company's shares while holding a dominant stake.
Recruitment group CPL, which floated on DCM and AIM with a free float of less than 20 per cent earlier this year, is much the same. What was the point of that apart from giving the CPL founders a bundle of cash - it is virtually impossible to buy CPL shares even though they are supposed to be on a public market?
Samir Naji and Ann Heraty have done very well out of the Horizon and CPL flotations, but they owe it to investors to make it a lot easier to buy their companies' shares.
