London’s dearth of public listings has weighed on asset managers over the past few years, prompting some of Britain’s largest fund groups to call for “urgent” action as they push into private assets to ease the pressure.
Stockpickers who focus on the UK market have suffered as fewer companies have sought to float on the London Stock Exchange and as other businesses have shifted to the US or have been snapped up on the cheap — depleting the pool of shares available for domestic fund managers.
The drought of initial public offerings is leading top fund managers to clamour for government policy to go further in order to attract more capital to London and entice companies to float on exchange.