More and more investors are realizing untapped value in their companies, but unlocking it could spell disaster for an increasingly isolated U.K.
The U.K. stock market has struggled with bad press this year. The FTSE 100, the country’s primary stock index, has effectively stagnated through 2023 after barely increasing in value, while it has also found itself in a new battle for European supremacy with Paris.
Now the London Stock Exchange has received a fresh reminder of its biggest existential threat: U.K.-based companies choosing to dump the country and list their shares in the U.S.
Pearson pressured to move
Speaking to Bloomberg, the boss of the biggest investor of publishing group Pearson suggested the company should change its primary listing to New York to improve its share value.
Cevian, Europe’s largest activist firm, owns 12% of the publishing and education company. Over a quarter of shares are owned by U.S. investors, according to Bloomberg data. The company, which used to own the Financial Times, is currently valued at $8.3 billion.
“To change the listing is an easy and effortless way to increase the value of a company,” Christer Gardell, managing partner and founder of Cevian Capital, told Bloomberg in an interview.
“Pearson is a U.S. company with the majority of sales and executives there. It’s only due to historical reasons it is still listed in the U.K.,” Gardell said.
A representative for Pearson didn’t immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment. However, a spokesperson told Bloomberg the company was proud of its London listing.
U.K. companies fleeing across the Atlantic
In September, Gardell told Bloomberg a big part of the company’s investment strategy would be focused on moving listings to different exchanges to maximize value.
U.K. companies often find they suffer from a valuation gap when compared with their peers across the Atlantic Ocean, and it is forcing some to either up sticks or accept a takeover from a larger U.S. firm.
The former option appears to be a strategy taken up by several companies this year, often to the detriment of the U.K.
British semiconductor giant Arm shunned London for New York when it launched its $55 billion IPO in September despite a huge lobbying effort from the U.K. government.
Meanwhile, Dublin-based building materials group CRH fled the U.K. for the U.S. earlier this year, citing its market presence in the States as a key driver. Cevian was pivotal in pushing for CRH to move to New York.
Travel company Tui, the U.K.’s biggest package holiday operator, said earlier this month that it was considering leaving the FTSE 100 for a Frankfurt listing, citing lower costs and “potential benefits to European Union airline ownership and control requirements.”
The trend of investors playing mood music around New York and companies upping sticks for the city have also caught the attention of the New York-based stock exchange Nasdaq, suggesting a further flight of liquidity from the U.K.
Speaking to the BBC, Karen Snow, global head of listings at Nasdaq, said her index was on the hunt for more U.K. companies as execs get in touch about the prospect of listing in the U.S.
“We’re having a lot of conversations with companies about listing in the US. We get a lot of inbound calls and we also make sure we’re in front of the right CEOs,” Snow said.
It’s perhaps unsurprising that the U.S. is being viewed with increasing romance as the U.K. takes a battering. This year looks set to be the first since 1995 that the London Stock Exchange has raised less than $1 billion through IPOs, according to Dealogic data compiled by the BBC.
Charles Hall, Peel Hunt’s head of research, said in October that the U.K. stock market was currently in a “doom loop” of low valuations, falling liquidity, and little desire to IPO.
“If this continues, the U.K. could lose a crucial part of its financial ecosystem,” Hall wrote.
