The London stock market is sliding into the abyss. The largest company will resort to the USA?
The London Stock Exchange, which until recently was the center of the European financial market, will sink into a more serious crisis. In terms of the value of debuts, the local dance floor has been behind the worst half of the year. To make matters worse, the largest company listed at London Stock Exchange is about moving over the ocean.
In the first half of this year, the number of stock debuts on the dance floor in London was the lowest since 2009, i.e. the financial crisis. From January to June 2025, only five companies entered London Stock Exchange. Łeagerly They have obtained only 150 million pounds within IPO, which is the lowest result since 1997, said Bloomberg's agency.
Thus, one of the oldest exchanges in the world has even outclassed even the WSE in this field, which is not famous for attracting new companies.
The biggest debut on the Warsaw Stock Exchange was in the last six months of IPO Diagnostics, which entered the dance floor in February, obtaining PLN 1.7 billion. Then in June Arlen appeared on the WSE, who sold shares for PLN 271 million. In total, PLN 1.97 billion was obtained in two debuts on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, i.e. in terms of British currency about 400 million pounds of sterling.
Comparing London to financial markets of greater importance than Warsaw, we can also look at Hong Kong, in which 43 stock debut in the last six months took place for a total amount of $ 13.6 billion. At that time, NYSE was obtained at this time under IPO of iple $ 8.7 billion, and companies entering Nasdaq collected $ 21.3 billion from investors.
On the other hand, it should be honestly said that there are plenty of stock exchanges, where the number IPO and the amounts obtained are even lower than in the case of London Stock Exchange. We are talking here, among others About the dance floor in Milan, Paris and Zurich. Sources of this state of affairs, you can see, among others in the commercial policy of the Donald Trump administration, which brought chaos and uncertainty to the markets. As a result, some companies have put off IPO plans, waiting for the situation to crystallize.
In the case of the London Stock Exchange, the sluggish inflow of new companies, however, is accompanied by information about the possible player's departure with the greatest market capitalization on the dance floor.
Escape of the largest company? Astrazeneca looks at the ocean
The Times published on Tuesday that Pascal Soriot, the president of Astrazeneca, has private talks about the transfer of the company's locations to the United States. The medical giant is to be frustrated with Great Britain, and one of the drops that could pour a cup of bitterness was 12 million pounds of co -financing, which could not be sent to the government in London.
At the beginning of this year, Astrazeneca abandoned plans to build a vaccine factory worth 450 million pounds near Liverpool. Although the official justification of this decision was different, according to the “Financial Times” the management gave up due to the gap in financing the undertaking. It amounted to 12 million pounds, i.e. 2.66% of the project value
Although conservatives initially concluded a contract with the company, committing to co -finance the project with the amount of 90 million pounds, the labustists stated after taking power that they found no provisions on this subject and finally agreed to give 78 million pounds to the company.
“The collapse of this agreement shows loudly and clearly that the Labor Party cannot be trusted in terms of ensuring your economic growth. We hear that the investment with a value of hundreds of millions of pounds has been lost due to the total inability of the government to negotiate, which is deeply disturbing and simply shows that short -term economic policy of Keira Starmer and Rachel Reeves limits the long -term perspective of this country” – said “The Independent” Treasury Chancellor in the Mel Stride shadow office.
A number of arguments in favor of American stock exchanges can also be attached to the unsuccessful project. The first of them was the fact that companies listed in London had historically much lower valuations than their counterparts on Wall Street. According to a study conducted by Rathbones, the price to profit (p/e) indicator for British shares was an average of 32% lower than for those listed in the USA.
For a company from the medical industry, the lesser regulatory load and the length of the process of approving new drugs in Great Britain will also be significant. In addition, Astrazeneca may assume that, as the largest of the existing deserters from Europe, he will gain special considerations of Trump's administration, which will be able to announce another success. Let us add that the US is the largest market for the company, responsible for over 40% of sales.
The last argument that can speak to the company's management is salaries. Although the President of Astrazeneca with his annual salary, which in 2023 amounted to 16.85 million pounds, holds the title of the best paid general director from among the emerging companies in the FTSE 100 index, market realities make the management staff of the company in the US earn more than him.
LSE loses its attractiveness
Claire Trachet, the founder of the consulting company for mergers and acquisitions of Trachet, commented for “CNBC” that the transfer of Astrazeneca's quotations to New York would mean a “irreparable loss” for the London stock exchange.
“Considering the complexity of the company, the decision does not simply mean for the benefits of liquidity or valuation, often mentioned by departing companies, but rather from three factors: poor results of capital markets in Great Britain, regulatory restrictions and disproportionate incentives from the government, which hinder the scale and rewarding innovation in the country,” said Claire Trachet.
Astrazeneca is the largest company at London Stock Exchange, whose valuation currently exceeds $ 220 billion – more than BP, National Grid and Lloyds Bank combined. In the rankings of public companies with the largest capitalization is in the 64th place in the world. Her moving to the USA would be a powerful blow to the London stock exchange, especially after two similar ads from this year.
In February, Glencore mining giant, whose valuation reaches nearly $ 50 billion, informed about the plans to make the USA. At the beginning of June, one of the leading British financial companies – Wise announced the same movement.
“The potential transfer of Astrazeneca painfully shows world markets that Great Britain is losing its advantage in satisfying the needs of global scale companies. This is not an isolated history – and this is the biggest problem. This is part of a wider change, in which the founders and boards are increasingly turning to the United States to deeper capital, stronger support and a more ambitious base and an ambitious base investors ” – commented Claire Trachet, cited by” CNBC “.
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