The directors of one of the last few stock exchange-listed legal businesses has admitted that going public had not been the success they had hoped for.

Setting out the case for delisting, the directors of Anexo Group – which owns the law firm Bond Turner – said the public quotation had failed to provide the company with access to the additional capital needed to support growth. At the same time, listed status had not incentivised employees through share ownership due to a weak and declining share price.

The directors said Anexo had been held back by not having the flexibility to react quickly to developments and had carried ‘significant costs’ through maintaining a quotation on London's Alternative Investment Market.

They added: ‘The independent Anexo directors have been of the view for some time that Anexo’s current quotation is a barrier to long-term success. The lack of comparable quoted entities, the departure of many institutional shareholders from the register, and paucity of analyst coverage all constitute a drag on the value of Anexo Shares in the near and medium term.

‘When the wider Anexo Group’s financial results have met analyst expectations this has had little positive impact on the share price, a trend which the Independent Anexo directors do not anticipate changing.’

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The company has said it will be better placed to drive improvements in shareholder value as a private entity. Minority shareholders were yesterday offered a proposed return of up to £12m through a tender offer at 60p per Anexo share. Shares in Anexo Group dropped from 68p to 53p on the day of the offer.

Asset management firm DBAY, which bought 29% of the shares at 150p per share in 2020, is proposing to buy the company with Anexo founder Alan Sellers and managing director Samantha Moss. The three joint bidders collectively own around 63% of the company’s shares and have said that, upon completion of the takeover, they will seek that admission of the company’s shares to trading on AIM be cancelled.

They added: ‘Following completion of the offer, in a private company setting and with access to support and other resources from the joint bidders, management will be able to focus entirely on the future success of Anexo without the distractions related to a public listing.’

The imminent delisting will leave just Gateley and Knights as legal services providers trading on the stock exchange. Anexo, which joined the AIM five years ago, was among the initial small rush to go public but there has been a rowing back in recent years, with DWF taken over by a private equity firm, Ince Group delisting in 2023 after it entered administration and MJ Hudson exiting the market in the same year.