The hoped for revival in new company listings in the City has so far failed to materialise with just five stock market debuts in the first half of the year.
Analysis by data provider Dealogic shows there were just 5 London IPOs between January and June, down even from last year’s meagre haul of seven. It is the lowest tally since 2009 during the financial crash.
The five IPOs have raised a total of just £150 million, down by more than three quarters on 2024 and the lowest level on records going back to 1999.
The paltry fundraising totals will cause alarm in the City where major IPOs have traditionally been one of the biggest sources of fee earnings for banking, broking, legal and PRs advisers.
They also come at a time when there has been a steady stream of takeovers of London listing companies, mainly through takeovers by bargain hunting foreign predators, leading to a slow draining of the pool of stocks that have their shares traded in the City.
There have also been a handful of high profile departures to other exchanges with fintech giant Wise declaring it is heading to the US for its primary listing.
Around the start of the year City chiefs confidently predicted an upsurge in listing in 2025 after thin pickings in 2024.
However, the latest bout of geopolitical turmoil caused by Donald Trump’s scattergun flurry of tariff announcements, and the brief war between Iran and Israel, has persuaded the bosses of potential IPO companies to keep their plans on hold for now.
However, there are hopes that the second half may prove more fruitful following reforms of the City’s listing rules.
In a rare boost for London the €16 billion Norwegian software company Visma last week said it had picked the City overover Amsterdam for its planned flotation next year.
A City task force has been set up to try to revive London's market.
But LSE boss Julia Hoggett, who is leading the campaign, admitted in a speech last week: “We still have not seen the real turning point in terms of risk capital within and into the UK.”
But the stream of takeovers of British companies helped the City’s M&A advisory sector had a better first half, according to data from LSEG Deals Intelligence.
The number of deals with a UK involvement has hit $166.6 billion so far during 2025, up 3% than the value recorded during the same period last year despite a 20% decline in the number of deal announcements.
The $27.3 billion sale of Calpine Corp to Constellation Energy is the largest deal with UK involvement so far during 2025.
Inbound M&A involving a foreign buyer and a UK target increased 14% to a three-year high of $59.0 billion.
But domestic activity slumped 41% in value to the lowest level since 2020.Just over a third of UK target M&A has been domestic so far during 2025, with the remaining 68% involving an overseas buyer, the highest share in three years. More than half of inbound M&A involved a US buyer.
Twenty-two deals involving a UK target were worth US$1 billion or more so far during 2025, the highest year-to-date total in three years.
The United Kingdom is the fourth most active country for M&A globally so far this year, after the United States, China and Japan, with deals involving UK targets accounting for 4.5% of global M&A activity.
Lucille Jones, senior manager, LSEG Deals Intelligence, said: “The value of M&A involving a UK company has risen to the highest level in three years.
“While economic concerns and market volatility have led UK buyers to take a more cautious approach to dealmaking, with both domestic and outbound deal activity slipping to multi-year lows, foreign investment has driven inbound M&A up 14% year-on-year to almost $60 billion.
“Private equity firms are showing particular appetite with PE-backed deals accounting for one-third of UK target M&A so far this year.
