One of London’s most prominent small-cap brokers has warned that the City faces being “hollowed out” unless the exodus of companies leaving the LSE is halted.
In an interview with City AM, Peel Hunt’s chief Steven Fine said the future of the London market was at risk due to the number of small-caps stocks leaving.
“To me, the question is really simple, do you believe that there is a future for public markets in the UK?
“Because if you do, you should be very alarmed by the sheer scale and the size of the companies that are exiting, and the lack of replenishment.”
“If you don’t care, if you’re in the camp that says I don’t really give a sh*t – excuse my language – then that’s fine. But if you do care, you should look at the 100 companies that have left.”
While he said there will always be 350 top companies, without the support of smaller and mid-cap stocks that will be just a veneer.
Just 23 firms floated in London last year, though Fine repeated his optimism about a revival that he aired last week with Peel Hunt’s results.
Fine said there were now promising signs of a recovery on the horizon.
“The UK market is feeling like it’s about to turn and reassert itself,” he added.
Recent IPO RaspberryPi has been a roaring success since it was listed, a float handled by Peel Hunt.
“If you had to pick a poster child of a company that you wanted to reopen the IPO market, you could not have picked better than a company like Raspberry Pi (LSE:RPI),” Fine said.
Medtech firm Aoti, meanwhile, also made a successful AIM debut today having raised £19.5 million ahead of its listing.