Why? Well both the government and the City fear that there will be considerable damage if London loses out to New York in attracting high-profile tech companies that are looking to list.
At the moment it doesn’t look good for London as following the collapse of Nvidia’s bid for Arm Masayoshi Son, the chief executive of Arm’s Japanese parent company Softbank, appeared to snub the UK saying that “We think that the Nasdaq stock exchange in the US, which is at the centre of global hi-tech, would be most suitable,” when it comes to a listing.
Johnson has joined government departments and London Stock Exchange executives in writing a letter to Softbank executives, according to the Financial Times.
Those involved include the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the Treasury, the business department as well as Downing Street.
So will they succeed? Unlikely, would seem to be the general consensus, although Arm was dual listed on both sides of the Atlantic before it was acquired by Softbank back in 2016. If London did win it back though, it would be a huge boost for its longer-term ambitions to have more tech flotations.
If it fails then government ambitions to make the UK the most attractive place for innovative businesses to grow and raise capital will have taken a real hit!
