One of the strongest performing stocks on AIM in the last few years, Burford Capital is the world’s most experienced, transparent and well-capitalized provider of finance to the legal market. Burford has pioneered institutional-quality commercial litigation finance, giving law firms more access to working capital to invest in their business.
Until 2014 we had a very small group of institutional shareholders, which limited the liquidity of our stock. In 2014 we raised additional capital through a bond on the London Stock Exchange, and for the first time it opened the eyes of retail investors to Burford Capital as an equity holding. The retail market was valuable to us to give us the liquidity we wanted, but we knew that it was a market that was hard to access effectively. We saw it as a challenge, and decided that we needed specialist advice and execution to help us directly engage with long-term retail investors, as we became better known.
We asked around the market for recommendations, and following an initial review we compiled a shortlist of two companies, one of which was Hardman & Co. We did our due diligence, and chose them because we liked the people, and felt that compared to the competition their bespoke approach to research and personal relationships with investors would work best for us.
They have regularly scheduled events for us to meet potential investors, in London and Edinburgh, as well as in Manchester and Liverpool. They also put on larger investor forums, which are effective in broadening our investor reach. But more than events, it is their personal introductions which have been most useful to us in developing our retail investor base. By supporting
Burford’s wider investor relations programme, Hardman & Co has both widened and deepened investor relationships, and as a result the stock has improved its liquidity.
Burford’s performance continues to rewardlong-term investors. Since engaging Hardman & Co, our shareholder base has widened, and liquidity has improved. We are pleased with these results and Hardman & Co’s help in getting us to where we are today.
