Model train maker Hornby is to quit the ailing London stock market after hiring the Sports Direct tycoon Mike Ashley as an adviser.
The company, which also owns Airfix, Corgi and Scalextric, said it will scrap its listing from London’s Alternative Investment Market (Aim), having first joined the exchange in 2015.
Hornby, which counts Sir Rod Stewart as a customer, said exiting the stock market will help “improve its decision-making” as it struggles to turn around its business following a more than 60pc decline in its share price over the past year.
Leaving the exchange will let it pursue its restructuring plans “at pace,” away from the public scrutiny and “regulatory hurdles” demanded of listed businesses, Hornby said.
It added: “A considerable amount of management time is currently spent complying with the legal and regulatory requirements associated with maintaining the company’s admission to trading on Aim.”
The push to go private comes after Mr Ashley, the founder of Sports Direct, was hired as an adviser to Hornby in March last year, to help boost its financial performance. The retail tycoon currently has an 8.9pc stake in the model maker, worth around £2.1m.
In addition stake to Hornby, Mr Ashley also owns significant stakes in retailers including Boohoo, Currys and Evans Cycles via his conglomerate Frasers Group, which was formerly called Sports Direct.
Hornby, which traces its roots back to 1901, has suffered a series of multimillion-pound losses in recent years, which it blamed on a downturn in the economy. It experienced a boom in demand for its toy trains during the pandemic.
Since then, it has made efforts to cut costs and draw in new customers, including by lowering the price of its toy locomotives, which cost up to £550 each. It has also sought to modernise its offerings by launching trains that can be controlled with Bluetooth technology via smartphones and iPads.
Hornby last year made a “significant reduction” to its headcount by laying off staff in its headquarters, in Margate, Kent, where it has been based since the 1950s, having originally been started by the Liverpudlian toy inventor Frank Hornby.
The company’s departure from the stock market comes amid a flight of top British companies from London’s troubled exchange, driven by burdensome costs and low valuations.
Paddy Power owner Flutter and construction giant CRH are among the companies to have recently shifted their listing from London to New York, with Shell threatening to make a similar move.
Superdry, the fashion retailer, last year also quit London’s troubled stock market in order to carry out its own turnaround plan “away from the heightened exposure of public markets”.