Midlands companies eyeing stock market
Midlands companies are showing an increased interest in floating on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), according to senior officials. Speaking to Insider while on a flying visit to the region, Tracey Pierce, director of equity primary markets at the LSE Group, said: “Last year was definitely the year of the secondary issue but this year, we have seen a shift.”
She added: “Up to the end of July we have 90 new companies and 48 IPOs.”
Her colleague Mark Russon, business development manager UK primary markets, said: “We’ve seen three companies with a head office in or around the Midlands floating on AIM this year. And the level of interest has been encouraging. People have been enquiring what the flotation route would look like.”
But the idea of regional stock exchanges - raised by the government in a green paper - was given a less than enthusiastic reception by Pierce.
“We’ve moved a long way from the days of the regional exchanges both in terms of technology and investor appetite,” she said. “Our view is that anything that can be done to improve access to funding for small caps across the UK regions should be considered but it really has to be viable.
"There are huge advantages of a centralised market. You have a critical mass. We can also break things down on a regional basis so people can invest regionally if they want to but it’s in a centralised, liquid marketplace. The risk with regional exchanges is fragmentation of liquidity and cost to the taxpayer.”
