The increase in regulation, high costs and low tradeability is making a listing on the Amsterdam stock exchange less attractive, a number of smallcap companies have told the Financieele Dagblad.

Sligro, Heijmans and Kendrion are among the stock exchange-listed firms which have expressed their concerns and at least eight companies are looking at alternative options, including a move to the small firm exchange NPEX, the FD said.

The paper bases its claims on a survey of 22 Dutch firms listed on either the ASc-X or local market in Amsterdam.

Euronext’s listings chief Rene van Vlerken told the paper the organisation shares small companies’ concerns. ‘If companies are no longer considered relevant to the providers of capital, then that is a problem for us,’ he said. Euronext, he said, is playing a ‘active role’ in finding solutions, in part by acting as a bridge between investors, brokers and banks.

The problems in the Netherlands are part of a European trend, the FD said, pointing to a recent report by research bureau Oxera which said 12% of European stock exchange listings have disappeared in the past decade.