London Is Losing the SPAC Fight With New York
Post-Brexit Britain is rightly looking to reform its public-listing rules. It’s going to take far more to truly compete for new issues.
Can London lure the likes of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic?
Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The arguments in favor of relaxing the U.K. rules for initial public offerings — even watering down the cherished principle of one-share, one-vote — stack up. If anything, the ideas Boris Johnson’s government put out for consultation may not be radical enough.
The U.K. wants to attract more IPOs to the London stock market, in particular high-growth companies from the technology sector. It sees Brexit, and its newfound freedom to deviate from European Union financial regulation, as an opportunity to create a regime that does just that.