London’s stock market was given a boost on Friday as an LED face mask maker listed its shares on the same day as the maker of tinned fish brand Princes and Napolina tomatoes confirmed plans to do the same.
Laurence Newman, the co-founder of the Cheshire-headquartered The Beauty Tech Group, which owns beauty gadget brands CurrentBody, ZIIP Beauty and Tria Laser, said he was proud to choose London for the firm’s £300m initial public offering (IPO). “I’m also hoping this will be the start of other people coming to the market,” he told the PA news agency.
“I started the business in the north-west of England – I built a British business and made it into an international business … it was my decision to support the London market,” he said.
The £2.1bn turnover Princes Group, which is owned by the Italian family firm Newlat (rebranded as NewPrinces) but is based in Liverpool, where it was founded 150 years ago, also confirmed it was hoping to join the UK market.
The group, which recently acquired Liverpool’s Royal Liver Building where its head office is based, is expected to list at a valuation of £1.5bn and raise about £400m from the sale of new shares to fund expansion plans. NewPrinces bought Princes from the Japanese group Mitsubishi last year for £700m before expanding the group.
Simon Harrison, the chief executive of Princes Group, which also owns Napolina tomatoes and Crisp ’N Dry cooking oil and sells Branston baked beans under licence, said: “A listing on the London Stock Exchange is a natural next step in our journey. Beyond providing access to capital to execute our [acquisition] ambitions, it will provide a platform to accelerate growth by expanding our product portfolio and expertise, extending our international reach, and attracting top talent as we continue building for the future.”
Angelo Mastrolia, the executive chair of Princes Group, said: “The UK is our largest market and the home of an experienced leadership team. This decision reflects our long-term confidence in the business, the strength of our management, and the scale of the opportunity ahead of us.”
The British lender Shawbrook is expected to kick off its long-awaited IPO in London soon and Fermi, a real estate investment trust, on Wednesday became the first company in decades to opt for a dual listing in London and the US.
The payment app Revolut is also reportedly considering a dual listing in New York and London for its hoped-for $75bn share sale.
However, the flurry of new business comes after fundraising from new listings in London slumped to its lowest level in at least 30 years.
Treasury officials are considering giving newly listed companies an exemption on the 0.5% tax on share transactions, which could be announced in Rachel Reeves’s budget in November in a bid to make the UK market more attractive.
A Treasury spokesperson has previously said: “We’re making the UK the best place in the world for businesses to start, scale, list and stay, and the FTSE 100 continues to trade close to all-time highs.”
A number of companies have recently shifted their listings to New York or returned to private ownership.
The UK’s biggest drugmaker, AstraZeneca, recently said it will also list its shares directly on the New York Stock Exchange in a decision described as a “knock-back for London”.
The FTSE 100 company said its direct listing in New York would replace trading in its American depositary receipts (ADRs) – which give US investors exposure to a non-US company – on the Nasdaq.
In recent years, the equipment rental company Ashtead, Paddy Power bookmaker owner Flutter Entertainment and building materials supplier CRH have all left the LSE.
