Government’s London Stock Exchange boosterism is anti-competitive, claims rival boss
The government’s drive to boost the appeal of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) has been slammed as anti-competitive by rival exchange Aquis, which claimed ministers have been unfairly promoting the LSE in their efforts to breathe life into the City’s IPO market this year.
The London Stock Exchange’s main market and smaller Alternative Investment Market (AIM), both owned by the publicly-traded London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), have been rocked by a sharp drop off in listings this year against a torrid backdrop for debuts on the public markets.
Ministers have thrown their weight behind the LSE in a bid to revive the appeal of the City and stop firms heading to New York to list.
However Alasdair Haynes, the founder and chief of Aquis, which operates a smaller market, said the government’s overt focus on the LSE is unfair.
“I don’t think [the government] want to see competition. I think they’re much more focused on traditional ways of doing things,” he told City PM in an interview.
In his Mansion House speech in the City in July, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt backed reform of the market and referenced a new trading venue to be launched by LSEG, saying “we will establish a pioneering new ‘Intermittent Trading Venue’ that will improve private companies’ access to capital”.
Haynes slammed the moves as interfering in the private sector and criticised the repeated use of the word ‘we’ when referring to initiatives led by LSEG.
“The Chancellor said we are going to introduce an Intermittent Trading Venue. Really? I thought the London Stock Exchange was talking about the intermittent trading venue?
“It came from Julia Hoggett, it actually came from their team… that is an LSEG decision, not a broader decision.
“It’s always ‘we’ do this’, ‘we’re going to make the London Stock Exchange into the Nasdaq of Europe’. Well, is that actually the job of the Chancellor and the government?”
Haynes claimed that ministers’ efforts to back the LSE were hampering any potential for London to create genuine competition in its public markets and create a system akin to New York.
New York boasts two behemoth bourses in the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange. Nasdaq transformed itself from a small electronic quotation system in the 1970‘s into a technology-backed giant with a cumulative market capitalisation of some $22 trillion.
Haynes also took aim at LSEG’s leadership and its chief David Schwimmer, who recently said that media coverage of London’s decline was “clickbait”.
“As a business in the City, I worry about denying the fact that it’s not good. Actually other countries are doing better and in the case of America, its capital markets are significantly better,” he added. “Rhetoric doesn’t change what we’re doing – actual action does change it.”
City Minister Andrew Griffith didn’t directly comment on Aquis’ complaints, but told City PM that the government’s vision for Britain to be “the most open, innovative and competitive financial centre in the world is bearing fruit”.
LSEG declined to comment.
Haynes’ comments will likely ramp up tensions in the Square Mile as stock exchange officials and regulators grapple with a slump in listings.
London has fallen below Turkey, Bucharest and Saudi Arabia in terms of capital raised on its markets this year.
New figures today showed new IPOs on the London Stock Exchange’s two markets raised just £953m, in the first three quarters of the year, down from £1.1bn for the same period in 2022 – an already sluggish year.