When a stock market is shrinking, delistings are demoralising. On Wednesday, Just Eat Takeaway said it would ditch its secondary London listing. It’s a sensible move for the lossmaking company which needs to cut costs. But it again highlights the challenges facing the London market after a stream of departures.
Still, the gloom about the London market looks overdone. The IPO pipeline is improving, even though this year 14 IPOs have so far raised just £750mn. French media conglomerate Vivendi’s planned €6bn-€8bn IPO of its TV business Canal+ is set to be the largest London listing since 2022. That, in turn, could be eclipsed by a proposed listing of Chinese fast-fashion group Shein. The long-awaited crop of fintech listings may even start to arrive.
The London Stock Exchange is hoping that new listing rules will burnish the UK’s appeal. They give bosses more freedom to make decisions without shareholder votes, and make it easier to adopt dual-class share structures. The exchange can also talk up disadvantages faced by relatively small companies that switch a listing to the US. A review of 20 companies that listed in the US since 2014 found more than a third had delisted.