The U.K.\u2019s IPO drought from last year has reportedly carried over into 2025.<\/p>\n
Just seven companies have floated and raised capital on the\u00a0London Stock Exchange<\/a>\u00a0(LSE) this year, the Financial Times (FT)\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0Monday (Sept. 8), citing data from Dealogic.<\/p>\n That\u2019s compared to 231 companies in the U.S., the report said, adding that nine companies had floated during the same time frame last year on the LSE, versus 129 in the U.S.<\/p>\n The situation has pressured asset managers in recent years, leading some of the largest funds in the U.K. to seek \u201curgent\u201d action as they move into private assets to alleviate the strain.<\/p>\n The FT added that the drought of\u00a0initial public offerings<\/a>\u00a0(IPOs) is leading top fund managers to campaign for government policy to go further to attract more capital to London and entice companies to float on the LSE.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need help from government if we are to turn Britons into a nation of investors rather than a nation of savers, which in turn makes the London Stock Exchange an attractive place to list,\u201d said Matthew Beesley, CEO of Jupiter Fund Management.<\/p>\n Richard Oldfield, chief executive of Schroders, said it will take more \u201cjoined-up thinking\u201d to usher in more IPOs in the U.K.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of good work has already been done, such as the regulatory and pensions-focused reforms,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we must get the incentives right for people to invest in the UK, across both public and private markets.\u201d<\/p>\n The report adds that the lack of U.K. IPOs has been due in part to a dwindling amount of capital in Great Britain. That is down to domestic pensions exiting London-listed equities after an accounting change decades ago, as well as the surging popularity of cheap tracker funds, which have more exposure to global stocks.<\/p>\n The IPO drought is not exclusive to the U.K. A midyear report from Bloomberg News found that in the first half of 2025, seven\u00a0venture capital (VC) backed companies<\/a>\u00a0had gone public, the smallest number in at least a decade.<\/p>\n