Several big companies are looking at potential London share listings, including miner Anglo American Platinum Ltd., Hong Kong conglomerate CK Infrastructure Holdings Ltd. and Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein. The flurry of interest suggests the UK stock market’s fortunes may be improving after many years of depressed activity. An effort by the new Labour government to channel more British pension fund money into local stocks may help. But the market is still much smaller than it was before the 2008 global financial crisis, and a recent pullback by investors from European equities has hit London harder than other European markets.
London’s reputation as a listing destination for international companies has suffered as several firms — including CRH Plc and Flutter Entertainment Plc — chose to switch their main share listings to New York. Even London’s biggest inter-dealer broker, TP ICAP Group Plc, is looking to the US as it considers an IPO of a lucrative data business. An especially bitter blow was London’s failure to lure one of the most promising British technology companies — Cambridge, England-based chip designer Arm Holdings Plc. Despite lobbying by government ministers and an offer to relax UK listing rules, Arm’s Japanese parent company SoftBank Group Corp. chose New York for its return to public markets.