Ailbhe Rea: Is Shein the Answer to London’s problems?

It’s a well-known problem that London is struggling to attract businesses to float on its stock exchange — but recently it’s gone from bad to worse, Bloomberg reveals today.

Only a few years ago the UK was in the top five global venues for initial public offerings. But now we’ve now fallen to 20th, down four spots just this year, according to data compiled by our Bloomberg whizzes. We’ve been leapfrogged by Oman, a market that’s 1% the size of the UK, as well as Malaysia and Luxembourg. In the past year alone, fundraising from London IPOs has declined about 9%.

That’s bad news for the City, and for a government that sees financial services as one of the most important growth drivers of the British economy.

It’s in that context that Labour has been conducting what one government insider has described to me as a “charm offensive” with the controversial Chinese fast fashion company, Shein. Donald Tang, the company’s head, has been into the Treasury for meetings with ministers, as they seek to encourage a listing worth an estimated £50 billion, which would be London’s biggest ever IPO.