For years, the London Stock Exchange has felt like a grand ballroom where the music has stopped. After a blistering, perhaps reckless, party in 2021, a chilling silence descended. The market for new stock listings—the lifeblood of a vibrant financial centre—froze solid, battered by global volatility, punishing post-float performances, and the siren song of New York’s deeper, richer markets. Companies left, investors soured, and London’s prestige as a premier destination to go public seemed to be fading.
But now, as autumn leaves fall in 2025, a distinct, if quiet, pulse can be felt. A flurry of activity—a successful debut for skincare firm Beauty Tech Group, IPO plans from food giant Princes, and a £2 billion filing from Shawbrook Bank—has stirred hopes of a thaw. The question on everyone’s lips in the City is whether this is a true spring for London listings, or just a few defiant green shoots destined to wither in the next frost.
The numbers tell the story of a near-fatal collapse. From a staggering 100 IPOs raising nearly £17 billion in 2021, activity evaporated. By 2024, the market hit a decade-low with just 18 companies raising a paltry £778 million—a fall of over 95% from the peak. It was a crisis of confidence, punctuated by high-profile disasters. The notoriously catastrophic float of Deliveroo in 2021, and the more recent implosion of CAB Payments—hailed as a 2023 bright spot before its stock crashed over 80%—left deep scars on the investor psyche.
Yet, a curious and vital counter-narrative emerged from the wreckage. The few companies brave enough to list in the desolate landscape of 2024 were, on average, stunningly successful. Priced conservatively to lure terrified investors, they delivered an average return of 32% by year-end, vastly outperforming their US counterparts, which lost 3%. It was a crucial lesson: in a buyer’s market, quality deals priced right can still fly. This small, resilient cohort may have laid the very foundations for today’s cautious optimism.
The single greatest deterrent, however, has been the elephant in the room: the valuation gap. For years, founders and private equity owners have watched with frustration as comparable companies fetched far higher prices on New York’s Nasdaq. This isn’t just perception; for tech firms, the valuation discount in London can be 30% or more. The result has been a painful exodus. Cambridge-born chip designer Arm rebuffed Downing Street and opted for a blockbuster Nasdaq listing in 2023. FTSE-100 giants like Flutter and CRH have moved their primary listings across the Atlantic in search of better ratings and deeper liquidity. London was losing not just its future stars, but its established champions.
Faced with this existential threat, regulators and policymakers didn’t just stand by; they launched a revolution. In the most sweeping overhaul of UK listing rules in a generation, they systematically dismantled the barriers that made London seem cumbersome and old-fashioned. The rigid 25% minimum “free float” of shares was slashed to a more flexible 10%. The door was thrown open to dual-class share structures, allowing founders to retain control post-IPO—a critical feature for many tech entrepreneurs.
The reforms culminated in 2024 with the creation of a single, streamlined listing segment, slashing the red tape and shareholder approvals required for major transactions. The message was clear: London is fighting back, remaking itself to be as nimble and attractive as its global rivals. As one banker quipped, “If a founder says they won’t list in London because of the rules, that’s no longer credible—it’s about the market, not the rulebook.”
With a modernised rulebook in hand, the focus now shifts to the pipeline. Bankers report a growing queue of companies for 2025, dominated by private equity firms needing to exit aging investments and a smattering of founder-led businesses. The success of Raspberry Pi’s 2024 Londonfloat was a symbolic boost for homegrown tech. The real prize, however, would be a landmark international listing. All eyes are on Visma, a €20 billion Nordic software giant that has provisionally chosen London, a decision that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago and could act as a powerful magnet for others.
But the competition remains ferocious. For every potential London success story, there are cautionary tales of companies poached by rivals. London is not just competing with New York, but also with increasingly sophisticated European exchanges in Amsterdam and Frankfurt. Even homegrown stars like fintech Wise, which listed in London in 2021, are now seeking shareholder approval to shift their primary listing to the US, a deeply worrying sign.
Ultimately, the revival hinges on a fragile ecosystem of confidence. The order books for recent IPOs have been thin, often dangerously reliant on a handful of large “cornerstone” investors to get them over the line. To create a durable market, demand must broaden. Here, long-term policy initiatives like the “Mansion House Accord,” which encourages UK pension funds to invest billions more into British growth assets, could be a game-changer. Channelling even a fraction of this domestic capital into the public markets would create a powerful, stable source of demand for new listings.
So, is London back? The answer is a qualified, cautious yes. The market is reopening, not with a sudden bang, but with the quiet, deliberate steps of a patient regaining strength. The reforms have made London a contender again, but they cannot erase the valuation gap overnight or insulate it from global economic shocks. The next 12 months will be pivotal. A few more successful floats, especially a large-scale international win, could turn today’s trickle into a steady flow, rebuilding the momentum and belief that has been absent for so long.
The patient has a pulse. The world is now watching to see if it’s strong enough to run again.
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