Speaker 1: So I would say that if a company decides it's
Speaker 1: not going to list in New York for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: then in the past London was often with the default
Speaker 1: choice if they were thinking about this. In Europe, we
Speaker 1: are not necessarily anymore. Listings in the UK are actually
Speaker 1: at the lowest in more than a decade. British startups
Speaker 1: are flocking to the deeper pockets found in New York
Speaker 1: and Europe, and a string of high profile flops over
Speaker 1: the past two years has also done serious damage to
Speaker 1: investor confidence in London IPOs. I'm Francine Law in London
Speaker 1: Studio and this is in the City, Bloomberg's podcast connecting
Speaker 1: you to the stories at the heart of the City
Speaker 1: of London. This week we explore a question facing the
Speaker 1: Square mile. Can it be saved? Well? Mark Austin thinks so.
Speaker 1: He's the latest person charged with sprucing up the UK's
Speaker 1: listing rules and helping this maintain its position as one
Speaker 1: of the world's leading financial centers, and he shares his
Speaker 1: plans with us a little bit later in the show.
Speaker 1: But first, Bloomberg editor kat Van Hoof explains why a
Speaker 1: big chunk of the IPL market share disappeared from London
Speaker 1: post Brexit, and my government efforts to attract more startups
Speaker 1: have not paid off yet. Cat, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. What a great, great pleasure to have
Speaker 1: you here in the studio. So what exactly is happening
Speaker 1: in terms of real listings in London? Is it better
Speaker 1: or worse? So essentially, when you look at what's going
Speaker 1: on in the UK, especially since Brexit, you can't talk
Speaker 1: about I p o s without using the B word.
Speaker 1: So since the vote in twenty sixteen, we've definitely seen
Speaker 1: a slowdown in the number of I p o s
Speaker 1: that have come to market. I think there was a
Speaker 1: bit of hope late twenty twenty when they got the
Speaker 1: Brexit deal that you know, there would be some new
Speaker 1: stuff coming through, and it did, but that's sort of
Speaker 1: your Fouria very quickly broke apart when a few of
Speaker 1: these listings didn't really do very well. So we had
Speaker 1: some solids like Dr Martin's listing early on in the
Speaker 1: year here and then we had deliver rou you know,
Speaker 1: lots of fanfile, lots of sort of chat beforehand about
Speaker 1: governance issues and about you know, sort of the gig economy,
Speaker 1: workers and the rights of these workers, etcetera. But still
Speaker 1: people are very excited. All eyes were on this listing
Speaker 1: and then it's just absolutely tanked from minute one and
Speaker 1: never really recovered about as well received as a cult.
Speaker 1: Takeaway delivery shares made their market debut Wednesday, and probably
Speaker 1: Plugs Delivery is actually halted now due to volatility, as
Speaker 1: it fell by twenty it felt by more than that
Speaker 1: is going on shares of the liver Roo. It's been
Speaker 1: kind of a strange offering here and certainly doesn't bode
Speaker 1: well I would think for you know, for the LC
Speaker 1: going forward. Think it's down from the I p O price,
Speaker 1: So that really put a dent in in the enthusiasm
Speaker 1: for London ipo. Is it London I p O S
Speaker 1: or is it I pos in general? Is there a
Speaker 1: problem with the attractiveness of the UK because of the
Speaker 1: B word? When you look over the six years since
Speaker 1: the vote, the share of IPOs in Europe that have
Speaker 1: happened in London has diminished. So it used to be
Speaker 1: about fort IPOs in Europe were done in London. Since Brexit,
Speaker 1: London has hosted about thirty. So it's definitely sort of
Speaker 1: a bit of a step back, and I also think
Speaker 1: it's sort of masking a greater problem where everybody else
Speaker 1: is also dealing with pandemic issues. Still, everybody's dealing with
Speaker 1: a big rotation in stock markets away from growth companies.
Speaker 1: I pos tend to come from growth companies. But we've
Speaker 1: still seen some big listings from other countries. We've seen
Speaker 1: some in Italy, You've seen some in the Nordics. Germany
Speaker 1: is preparing this massive listing for Porsche. So there is
Speaker 1: still activity. It's just we don't really have anything in
Speaker 1: London that's that's feasibly coming anytime soon really, So why
Speaker 1: is that? Because there were fluffs before you mentioned Deliverue,
Speaker 1: So I think it's a it's a big confluence of things. So,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously we have economic slowdown is worse than
Speaker 1: the UK than in many other European countries. You know,
Speaker 1: the forecasts are worse. Definitely, also Brexit related, you've got
Speaker 1: a little bit of overhang from those bad listings from
Speaker 1: one sort of left a sour taste. It's not really
Speaker 1: going to make people particularly happy to invest. And then
Speaker 1: on top of all of that, we just don't have
Speaker 1: that critical mass of of these sort of big tech
Speaker 1: companies you know, Boris Johnson's government has been really driving
Speaker 1: this charm offensive essentially to get startups and innovative tech
Speaker 1: companies and bring them into London, and you know, there's
Speaker 1: all these sort of big lobby efforts going on. But
Speaker 1: you know, no matter how much you lobby and ask
Speaker 1: companies and give them taxing centers and things like that,
Speaker 1: what really attracts tech companies is a big peer group
Speaker 1: because obviously, in an I p O you have to
Speaker 1: you know, you have to be valued. The market has
Speaker 1: to put a value onto you. And if there's no
Speaker 1: other companies to compare yourself to that are listed in
Speaker 1: the market you want to list, that's a problem. And
Speaker 1: if you don't have that peer group, you're also not
Speaker 1: going to have analysts that are very specifically covering a
Speaker 1: particular area, and you're not going to have investors that
Speaker 1: are very comfortable and testing in this particular area. And
Speaker 1: that's very, very important for these tech companies, and we've
Speaker 1: seen that with some of these tech listings in one
Speaker 1: like wise like Delivery, that just haven't done very well.
Speaker 1: So get Tom McKenzie and I spoke to Julia Hoggett,
Speaker 1: to the chief executive officer of the l a C.
Speaker 1: And she alluded that companies might be biding their time
Speaker 1: to list at the best time. I think that's a
Speaker 1: distinction between the preparation activity that companies are doing to
Speaker 1: get ready to come to market and the choice they
Speaker 1: make about when they do so. The questions to when
Speaker 1: it is partly function of their advice and what they're
Speaker 1: told to do in terms of the optimal valuation. And
Speaker 1: obviously we're seeing a complete shift in the interest rate environment.
Speaker 1: We've seen the Russian Ukraine circumstances. There is a global
Speaker 1: reset going on which I don't think was anticipated when
Speaker 1: people are looking at the year in December January, and
Speaker 1: that is fracturing into people's timing decisions. So she's pretty optimistic,
Speaker 1: for example, about the UK's follow on issues despite the
Speaker 1: dipping I p o s. Are the fears overblown? There
Speaker 1: is definitely a little bit of a sense of London
Speaker 1: bashing at the moment to a certain degree, and there
Speaker 1: is always that risk of potentially over egging it when
Speaker 1: it comes to all of the sort of negative things
Speaker 1: that are going on. We mustn't forget London is still
Speaker 1: very much the financial center in Europe. It is still
Speaker 1: you know, one bad year, so to say, or worse
Speaker 1: year than others, isn't necessarily going to mean London is over.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not forever, wherever and ever. It's not.
Speaker 1: It's not as simple as that, for sure. But yes,
Speaker 1: there are companies abiding their time. But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, what that means right now for the
Speaker 1: market is that some of these trends that are preventing
Speaker 1: companies from coming to market are getting worse in some ways.
Speaker 1: You know, people talk about the foot see one hundred
Speaker 1: as a dinosaur in next you know, the UK is
Speaker 1: a dinosaur stock market. It's all miners and oil and gas,
Speaker 1: and while they've done well this year, it's not generally
Speaker 1: stocks that are future proof. Also, to say that can
Speaker 1: regulation actually gives the lyse a new future. So they've
Speaker 1: been trying, that's for sure. And I do think, you know,
Speaker 1: down the line, some of the changes that are being proposed,
Speaker 1: like allowing founders greater control over their company after it lists,
Speaker 1: things like you know, smaller free floats, you know, just
Speaker 1: making it slightly easier for these high growth, earlier stage
Speaker 1: companies to come to market. That probably will start paying
Speaker 1: off in a few years time. But that doesn't really
Speaker 1: help us now. And on top of all of that,
Speaker 1: changing the rules a little bit and tweaking that and
Speaker 1: and sort of bringing London more in line with a
Speaker 1: market like New York. That's essentially sort of the gist
Speaker 1: of it. While a step forward in many ways for
Speaker 1: companies looking to list, it's not going to magically create
Speaker 1: this sort of critical massive investors. So yes, it's good
Speaker 1: in some ways, but it's not necessarily going to be
Speaker 1: a silver bullet in anyway. So getting five years from now,
Speaker 1: well you look back at this moment and say, this
Speaker 1: is where or when we realize that this was going
Speaker 1: to be a more regional economy, maybe with more regional
Speaker 1: indicy some and I p o s. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what I'm going to have for dinner. I don't
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen in five years time, but
Speaker 1: I always always past. I think we are at a
Speaker 1: an important moment in time where there is a danger
Speaker 1: of that things are being done. Whether or not all
Speaker 1: of them are good or are going to end up
Speaker 1: in the way that they have been intended is much
Speaker 1: more difficult to predict. But there is definitely a danger,
Speaker 1: more so than probably at any other time in sort
Speaker 1: of modern history for London, where you kind of have
Speaker 1: to look at it and go, okay, we can see
Speaker 1: some of these dynamics, these trends developing and the time
Speaker 1: to do something is now. You also have to keep
Speaker 1: in mind this is from the regulators perspective and companies,
Speaker 1: but investors are less enthusiastic about some of these changes.
Speaker 1: You know, for them, a London premium listing for decades
Speaker 1: has been the governance gold standard, the biggest investor protections
Speaker 1: in the world, and that's being eroded in a way.
Speaker 1: You know, some of these rules are taking away invested
Speaker 1: protections and it does expose people a little bit more.
Speaker 1: There are reasons why these invested protections and these government
Speaker 1: standards have been so high, and if you start eating
Speaker 1: away at these requirements, there will also be some unintended consequence.
Speaker 1: Cat thank you so much. So, now that we have
Speaker 1: a sense of how bad things have gotten, let's turn
Speaker 1: to what might be done to ensure that the city
Speaker 1: maintains its position as one of the world's leading financial centers.
Speaker 1: Joining us as Mark Austin, a partner at law from
Speaker 1: fresh Field who was also commissioned to lead a government
Speaker 1: review into London's capital markets. Thanks so much for joining
Speaker 1: us from What was the most surprising thing you found?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the most the most surprising good
Speaker 1: thing I found was that there is a real appetite
Speaker 1: in the market for reform. I think people get it
Speaker 1: in the UK now. I've been a leading financial center
Speaker 1: for a long time, but that is always a process
Speaker 1: of as osmosis, is always a process of developing as
Speaker 1: the world develops around you. And all credit frankly to
Speaker 1: the Treasury and the government and to the s c
Speaker 1: A for leaning into this process and being very visionary
Speaker 1: and moving with speed. But we need now, particularly given
Speaker 1: we're not in the EU anymore, to think about how
Speaker 1: we keep ourselves relevant. We've done it very successfully for
Speaker 1: particularly last couple of decades. We now need to think
Speaker 1: about how we do it in the next couple of
Speaker 1: decades in a more competitive global environment. Let's be clear
Speaker 1: enlisting terms capital markets terms, but also where one where
Speaker 1: we are outside the EU, because that does make a difference.
Speaker 1: What's the danger if there aren't these reforms going forward? Well,
Speaker 1: the danger is I think that in ten, fifteen and
Speaker 1: twenty years time we'll wake up and realize that we've
Speaker 1: slept walk into becoming a relatively regional, parochial stockage change
Speaker 1: and financial center, which we've got every chance to avoid
Speaker 1: that happening. But we need to have very bold and
Speaker 1: brave conversations and honest conversations about what we need to
Speaker 1: do to try to make sure that doesn't happen. There's
Speaker 1: every chance it won't happen, but we're in a foot
Speaker 1: race with other jurisdictions around the world, not just New York,
Speaker 1: but our continental European peers as well as well as
Speaker 1: obviously Asians stock markets, and we need to be very
Speaker 1: aware of that and be very visionary and as I say,
Speaker 1: honest in what we need to do to reform ourselves
Speaker 1: to keep ourselves relevant. Put it simplistically, do investors or
Speaker 1: do do companies at list just want high valuations and
Speaker 1: easy regulation? They do want that, I mean clearly any
Speaker 1: listings are often used as exits or partial exits, so
Speaker 1: evaluation is clearly important, and regulatory friction is clearly relevant
Speaker 1: to people want high standards at the same time, So
Speaker 1: there is a balance to be struck between having a
Speaker 1: regulatory system that is pragmatic and flexible and responsive to
Speaker 1: the needs of issuers and investors, and yet at the
Speaker 1: same time not unjusly so, So I mean part of
Speaker 1: the exercise we're going through in London the moment is
Speaker 1: actually having an honest conversation about what do we really
Speaker 1: need to be competitive for the next twenty years and
Speaker 1: to ensure appropriate consumer protection as well, and so what
Speaker 1: do we need. So we've we've already reformed things like
Speaker 1: free float, We've talked about your class shares, We've made
Speaker 1: some amendments around spacts. The SCA is continuing that process
Speaker 1: now and potentially collapsing sim preferring our list sting segments
Speaker 1: down into one single listing segment. That's an ongoing conversation.
Speaker 1: The secondary capital raising process, which is what I've just
Speaker 1: been focusing on for the last few months, that needs
Speaker 1: to be made quicker and cheaper and more efficient. And
Speaker 1: I'm pleased to say that my review seems to have
Speaker 1: landed as I intended it to, as received wisdom, by
Speaker 1: which I mean people agree, which is what I was
Speaker 1: trying to do, which is not fair, but then it
Speaker 1: has to be executed on Yeah, it does, but a bit,
Speaker 1: But I mean I I spent an awful lot of
Speaker 1: time talking to everybody across the market to make sure
Speaker 1: that it landed like that, and I'm glad that people
Speaker 1: engage with it in the right way because I was
Speaker 1: worried at the staff. I'll be honest that there might
Speaker 1: be a bit of computer says no, or this is
Speaker 1: all too hard, But actually there's a market. The conversation
Speaker 1: has been successfully reframed, I think, to one where just
Speaker 1: because we've done things in a certain way for the
Speaker 1: last twenty years doesn't mean we should necessarily do them
Speaker 1: in the next twenty years. And that doesn't mean, by
Speaker 1: the way, that we should engage in a regulatory race
Speaker 1: to the bottom and give away the reputation we have
Speaker 1: for high corporate governance and regulatory standards. Absolutely not. But
Speaker 1: it does mean that we should be flexible and pragmatic
Speaker 1: about how we do that, particularly when we set ourselves
Speaker 1: against other listening venues. What are the other strongest listing
Speaker 1: venues out there? New York is obviously the pre eminent one,
Speaker 1: always has been. It's a much bigger market than we are,
Speaker 1: much more liquid, has more companies listed over there, bigger
Speaker 1: in terms of size. We know that, But the I
Speaker 1: would say our main competition these days now we're outside
Speaker 1: that he is actually the continental European venues Amsterdam in particular,
Speaker 1: also Paris and Frankfurt, and you see those jurisdictions. They
Speaker 1: realized that too. Only a couple of weeks ago we
Speaker 1: had Germany coming out with some revised proposals around the
Speaker 1: future of Funding Act, and that's around making i PA
Speaker 1: is easier, making couple of markets more efficient. The EU
Speaker 1: has come out several times with revisions on IPA rules,
Speaker 1: and France is very active as well, so as the Netherlands.
Speaker 1: We have lots of benefits in this jurisdiction times, own language,
Speaker 1: rule of law, stable regulatory system. It's a nice place
Speaker 1: to live. But you know, we shouldn't delude ourselves that
Speaker 1: places that Amsterdam have all of those things too, and
Speaker 1: they are hungry, they are competitive. Do people want to
Speaker 1: listen in London because because of the steache because London
Speaker 1: was London? Yeah they do, they do, and historically they have.
Speaker 1: But sometimes the question comes up, well, but you know
Speaker 1: the other the regulatory friction or the amount of flak
Speaker 1: I might get, or your remuneration policies or investor attitudes.
Speaker 1: Actually it's just an easier life for me to list
Speaker 1: in Amsterdam, for example, because I get more or less
Speaker 1: the same outcome. I think in a globalized world and
Speaker 1: a globalized investor world that we have these days, increasingly
Speaker 1: investors are pretty agnostic about the exchange that they will
Speaker 1: go on. London has an allure, has a historical aluer,
Speaker 1: but I think we shouldn't be under any illusions about
Speaker 1: the power that might have going forward if we're not careful.
Speaker 1: But if you're telling me that people listen in Amsterdam
Speaker 1: because they have an easier life, they're small. Once they
Speaker 1: become big, can they afford to have regulation which has
Speaker 1: maybe seen as more lax in London. Yes, I mean
Speaker 1: it's not it's necessarily lax. They take things on a
Speaker 1: case by case basis and they are pragmatic about it
Speaker 1: and they are flexible. I don't think anyone would say
Speaker 1: that the corporate governance standards that they have an Amsterdam
Speaker 1: or any materially deliterious compared to ours in London, or
Speaker 1: that they are, in regulatory terms, anymore relaxed. They are
Speaker 1: more relaxed and they can afford to be You're right,
Speaker 1: because of their size. So they will have to look
Speaker 1: at that as they get bigger. But the problem is
Speaker 1: that we go too far the other way. At the moment,
Speaker 1: we have too much architecture around it, which, when compared
Speaker 1: with a jurisdiction that has it is taken much more
Speaker 1: pragmatic approach of things often can hold us back and
Speaker 1: can shoot us in the foot. And it didn't matter,
Speaker 1: It didn't matter when we were the default listing venue.
Speaker 1: But we're not necessarily that anymore. Mark, I mean, is
Speaker 1: there a psychological element too? When you're listening, you also
Speaker 1: want to go to the coolest place? So actually, is
Speaker 1: there an I p O or something in the pipeline
Speaker 1: that would turn around the psychology of other companies to
Speaker 1: come here. I'm not sure there's one particular company. I
Speaker 1: think it's more about what is the perception of London
Speaker 1: amongst the founder community and the corporate community more generally,
Speaker 1: and it needs to become a default that when you
Speaker 1: are a company that is founded here or even an
Speaker 1: international issue are London is a viable place for you
Speaker 1: to list and get the valuation you want, the investors
Speaker 1: you want. But you're talking about the recent blow basically
Speaker 1: from soft Bank, which is now rethinking whether to bring
Speaker 1: back the UK to designer ARMED to the London mark.
Speaker 1: It's with a partial listing that should UK policymakers now
Speaker 1: do everything they can to convince them that this is
Speaker 1: the right place. And what can they do concretely, What
Speaker 1: can they do concretely, I think just illustrate, demonstrate to
Speaker 1: ARM and its owners that they will not be at
Speaker 1: a disadvantage by virtue, either in terms of valuation or liquidity,
Speaker 1: or regulatory friction or the investor attitudes that they will
Speaker 1: engage they will encounter in London visa via any other jurisdictions.
Speaker 1: I think that's the key thing. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: wider points round as well, because as I said in
Speaker 1: my in my letter, and I've said a number of times,
Speaker 1: regulatory reform is only one thing, and and all credit
Speaker 1: to the Treasury and the f c A moving things
Speaker 1: forward with speed on the back of hill and I'm
Speaker 1: confident by the middle of next year sa Q three
Speaker 1: next year, we will have a regular, reformed regulatory regime
Speaker 1: in London that is modernized, fit for purpose and that
Speaker 1: bears comparison with any other GIP listing jurisdiction in the world,
Speaker 1: which is fun tastic. The other things that we need
Speaker 1: to start thinking about, and the discussion has already started,
Speaker 1: are things like remuneration. Our remuneration policies in this country
Speaker 1: do not necessarily help us, and there is an obsessive
Speaker 1: focus on remuneration and investor rattitudes in London are perhaps
Speaker 1: more value focused rather than growth focused. I think there's
Speaker 1: a conversation to have there around investor rattitudes in London.
Speaker 1: I think there's a conversation to have around proxy advisors
Speaker 1: and the and the power they have and the influence
Speaker 1: they have and how they interact with companies and investors.
Speaker 1: I think there's a conversation to have about tax incentives
Speaker 1: and how you actually create a continuum across the private
Speaker 1: UK capital markets and the public UK capital markets that
Speaker 1: create tax incentives for companies to found themselves here, scale
Speaker 1: themselves here and then stay here. What kind of time
Speaker 1: frame are we thinking about? So if this is left
Speaker 1: too long, if this is left I don't have twelve
Speaker 1: months even eighteen months again, does it fizzle out? Do
Speaker 1: you have to to kind of, you know, go quite
Speaker 1: aggressively for it now? I think you do. I think
Speaker 1: you do, and you know there's no you should strike.
Speaker 1: Why they are top. There is general consensus in the
Speaker 1: market across all stakeholders that this needs to happen, and
Speaker 1: it is happening. I don't think we need to say,
Speaker 1: you know, if we haven't done it within eighteen months,
Speaker 1: whi's too late. I think probably if you talk about
Speaker 1: in three or four years, it might be too late.
Speaker 1: But we're not talking about that sort of time frame.
Speaker 1: I think people are keen to do this as quickly
Speaker 1: as possible. I'm very hardened by the fact that we
Speaker 1: are taking fairly swift action on all this. But it's
Speaker 1: also about just changing the narrative amongst global investors in
Speaker 1: global companies that London is open for business, the UK
Speaker 1: capital markets are a place that they should come and list.
Speaker 1: And the point we also are making through we're making
Speaker 1: through the task Force and I've also been making is
Speaker 1: this isn't just a look after the City of London point.
Speaker 1: I mean that is important, but it is actually a
Speaker 1: UK economy point because the City of London is a
Speaker 1: major economic driver of the UK economy and so keeping
Speaker 1: it relevant is important in all sorts of economic and
Speaker 1: political terms. And if we have a thriving public and
Speaker 1: private capital market in the UK, then that drives jobs,
Speaker 1: that drives wages, that drives it drives the economy. So
Speaker 1: there's a wider political and economic good that we need
Speaker 1: to reinforce too. But Mark, I don't know whether you're
Speaker 1: you're feeling was that Boris Johnson was doing enough or
Speaker 1: not enough for it. It felt at times like actually
Speaker 1: this was something that he wanted together with the chancel
Speaker 1: Richie sooner. And we're in a political vacuum and we
Speaker 1: don't really know what the next Prime minister will do,
Speaker 1: So how much does it matter who's leading this country
Speaker 1: in this I don't think it matters that much. And
Speaker 1: to be fair, Jim Boris Johnson and his team were
Speaker 1: doing a very good job. Number ten and very number
Speaker 1: eleven very were very keen on all this and they
Speaker 1: were very active. But I don't actually think it mattered
Speaker 1: because these reforms and these discussions that we're talking about
Speaker 1: are almost no brainers for the reasons I was just
Speaker 1: outlining in terms of the benefit of the UK economy. Look,
Speaker 1: let's be honest, there is a risk of some complacence
Speaker 1: in London when we let's EU. That's a democratic decision.
Speaker 1: Everyone's accepted that we need to make the best of
Speaker 1: it now, but we are indifferent. As a francial center,
Speaker 1: we are in a different position. And I'm talking about
Speaker 1: in this podcast about listings, but we need to keep
Speaker 1: ourselves relevant. And that's what all these reforms were about,
Speaker 1: is what these wider attitude and or discussions are about,
Speaker 1: because we can't necessarily assume any longer that if a
Speaker 1: company is not listening in Asia, or list not listening
Speaker 1: in New York and it wants to list in Europe,
Speaker 1: that it will list in London. Amsterdam is a very
Speaker 1: and the other juristications are very active competitors and they
Speaker 1: recognize that they have an opportunity. So we need to
Speaker 1: be fleet of foot. And and I don't just get
Speaker 1: any sense that the political change that we're going through
Speaker 1: at the moment will make any difference to this. I
Speaker 1: don't think that whoever the Prime Minister is, whoever the
Speaker 1: chance or is, whether the Conservatives or Labor or anyone else. Frankly,
Speaker 1: it's also self evident this that I'm confident it will
Speaker 1: it won't change. But Mark, what exactly has changed with Brexit?
Speaker 1: Is it perception or is it that the pool of capital,
Speaker 1: the pool of investors? I think a lot of it
Speaker 1: is perception. Yes, the conversations that we often have with
Speaker 1: issues thinking about where to list is the first thing
Speaker 1: they asked you do is a side by side of
Speaker 1: New York, London, Paris, frank For Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter so much when we were in the
Speaker 1: U because we were the default, as they said, more
Speaker 1: often than not, placed to list if you were going
Speaker 1: to list in Europe. We are not anymore. Who in
Speaker 1: Amster down host some very large I p o s
Speaker 1: very successfully with very successful valuations. They get the same
Speaker 1: global investors coming in no global investors, and I've talked
Speaker 1: to a lot of them in the last few months
Speaker 1: through my review. I don't really mind which exchange some
Speaker 1: things on as long as they get the right valuation
Speaker 1: and they have a flexible regulatory regime around it to
Speaker 1: some extent. And so that's that's the honest conversation we
Speaker 1: need to have because in the past I think people
Speaker 1: the world where London so will always be all right.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily the case anymore. We will be all
Speaker 1: right as long as we have the sensible conversations and
Speaker 1: make the sensible reforms. Now, but we've got to do it,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it requires some fairly hard conversations because in London,
Speaker 1: being candid, there are quite a lot of invested interests
Speaker 1: and commercial interests that I've got used to how we work,
Speaker 1: and the little industries that we have that sort have
Speaker 1: come off the listing side of things, whether it's professional
Speaker 1: advisors or other and we need to challenge some of
Speaker 1: those two now that those orthodoxes, those shival us if
Speaker 1: we really want to keep ourselves relevant, because I can
Speaker 1: tell you Amster down Paris and Frankfurt will do everything
Speaker 1: they can to accentuate the positive to make people listen there,
Speaker 1: and they have enlisting terms at least any minimum standard,
Speaker 1: what's called our standard listing. And so the question for
Speaker 1: us is we need to justify why we need anything
Speaker 1: on top of that at all anymore when we're no
Speaker 1: longer the default place to list. It's fine, I mean,
Speaker 1: we should keep our regulatory standards. I'm not, as I
Speaker 1: said earlier, we shouldn't be sawing the regular baby out
Speaker 1: with the bath water, but we need to be very
Speaker 1: clear with ourselves and honest with ourselves about what we
Speaker 1: anything we put on top of what those other juristictions
Speaker 1: have justified very honestly and very objectively. Mark, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Thank you for listening to this week's in
Speaker 1: the City. We'll be back next week. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: If you like our show, and we hope you do,
Speaker 1: please head over to the Apple Podcasts or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to the podcasts and you can rate it with
Speaker 1: good reviews and also subscribe. This episode was hosted by
Speaker 1: me Francine Laqua and produced by Summer Saudi and Elena Gnatra.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Cat van Hoof and Mark Austin. Eight