Skyline of the city of London with 20 Fenchurch Street, affectionately nicknamed The Walkie Talkie, in London, the United Kingdom.
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The collection of funds from the London OPI collapsed at least a minimum of three decades in the first half of this year, showed the new data on Friday, raising new questions about the charm that fades from the United Kingdom as a center for the global capital.
The five debuts in the London market in the first six months of 2025 raised a total of £ 160 million ($ 218.6 million), according to new Dealogic data.
That is the lowest level of London OPI funds collected in the first half of the year registered by Dealogic since it began to collect data in 1995.
Even after the financial crisis of 2008, two London opi managed to raise £ 222 million in the first half of 2009, according to the data.
The largest in London so far this year was the list of the Professional Services Company Mhawhich raised £ 98 million in its debut in the alternative investment market (AIM) in April.
The listings fall in London this year add to the struggles of the city to maintain their ancient glory as one of the main destinations for the global capital.
According to the most recent IPO Watch report of the Giant of PWC professional services, the income of the IPO in the United Kingdom fell to £ 100 million in the first quarter of 2025, below £ 300 million in the same period of the previous year.
Only this year, the city’s financial markets have been transmitted by companies that had ever planned lists of great success there. It is reported that Shein, for example, is planning an OPI in Hong Kong after leaving the previous plans to float his actions in London, while the metal investor backed by Glencore, Cobalt Holdings, confirmed CNBC last month that he had discarded plans for an opi in London.
The problems are not limited to new lists: in June, the British Fintech giant, Wise, announced that it was moving its main list from London to New York, already early this week it was reported that Pharma Giant Astrazeneca – The most valuable company in the FTSE 100 index in London – is considering moving its list to the United States.
Kristo Kaarmann, CEO and co -founder of Wise, said in a statement at the time that the measure would help raise awareness about the company in the United States, while giving the company better access to the “deepest and deepest and liquid capital market in the world.”
Dealogic’s data highlighted a significant gap between the lists of the United States and the United Kingdom so far this year. The US markets saw 156 opi in the first six months of the year, which collectively raised $ 28.3 billion, according to the figures.
However, Samuel Kerr, head of Variable Income Capital Markets in Mergermarket, told CNBC that, although the United Kingdom capital markets “have been under a negative press cloud for some time,” there could be brighter times for London.
“We are seeing that more companies begin to see the lists of London again after several years of reform and a broader uncertainty about the regulatory and policy direction of the United States,” he said in an email.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer, has promoted his government’s plans to revitalize the capital markets of Great Britain, promising to analyze the regulation that “is unnecessarily retaining the investment.” Last summer, the United Kingdom’s financial behavior authority reviewed the listing rules in an attempt to simplify the process of floating actions in the United Kingdom market.
“If London can turn the interest of the initial stage into the lists of the United Kingdom in successful Opi, it will somehow will reverse part of the narrative of fatality,” Kerr from Mergermarket told CNBC.
Janet Mui, head of market analysis at Wealth Manager RBC Brewin Dolphin, said the outputs through the OPIs were slowing down worldwide.
“It’s easy to be bassist when we have news like this,” he said in an email on Friday. “The reality is more nuanced, including the macro uncertainty and the strictest financial conditions have slowed the worldwide list.”
Last week, Financial Times reported that the Norwegian software giant Visma had chosen London for his next public market debut. Mui argued that this news showed that there was still appetite for high growth companies to list in London.
“That said, more work is needed to deliver reforms to rationalize the list and make London more attractive to companies,” he admitted.
