Happy days are here again

THE booming stock market is luring companies back and a clutch of firms are queuing up to float on the Alternative Investment Market.

Alliance Pharmaceuticals, which buys the rights from industry giants to establish its own pharmaceutical brands, will reverse into Peerless Technology Group - an Aim-quoted shell - raising £11.2m to help the company finance the acquisition of new brands and to build a stronger marketing ability.

John Dawson, chairman and chief executive of Alliance, said there was a great opportunity to grow a company 'that specialises in the manufacture and supply of smaller-volume niche products'.

Dawson will be joined on the Aim market by Stuart Wright who founded City Lofts five years ago to cash in on the demand for apartments outside London. The company will float on Aim later this month with a market value of £60m.

Vista Group, which makes PVC door panels, is also poised for flotation on the junior stock market, raising £1.1m and giving it a value of £14.6m.

These three companies will be joined by City stalwart Center Parcs, the holiday chain, which is also destined for Aim.

Bidders have been circling the company for a few weeks as MidOcean Partners, the owner, has considered options.

Stockbroker Collins Stewart is frontrunner to buy the group for more than £300m using a bidding vehicle, which it is then likely to float on Aim. It is a near repeat of the transaction that put Collins Stewart in control of Northumbrian Water. Some 25 institutional investors are said to have agreed to take shares.