LeadershipNot yet confirmed elsewhere1 publisher2 min readPublished
Bids for London-listed firms have outnumbered large IPOs 15 to 1 since 2023
Peel Hunt counts 42 live bids worth £74bn for London-listed firms, more than double the £35bn bid across 2025. Bid numbers are close to 2025's and the targets are larger, so the stronger evidence that London is emptying sits on the listing side.
The Board Room · Leadership desk
Four figures: bids for firms over £100m since 2023 have a collective value topping £180bn; 11 IPOs above £100m in the same period total £6bn; 42 bids live now are worth £74bn; 40 bids across 2025 totalled £35bn.
| Figure | Value | Note | Claim |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bids over £100m since 2023 | 180 £bn | Collective value tops this; 166 bids | 4 |
| IPOs above £100m since 2023 | 6 £bn | Total value of 11 IPOs | 5 |
| Bids live now | 74 £bn | Market cap across 42 ongoing bids | 1 |
| Bids across all of 2025 | 35 £bn | Across 40 bids | 2 |
What happened
- Since the start of 2023 there have been 166 bids for firms priced above £100m, with a collective value above £180bn.
- Over the same period there have been just 11 IPOs above £100m, worth £6bn in total.
- City AM reported that seven UK giants have also shifted their listings since 2023, leaving a £120bn hole in the London market.
- Airtel Money listed in London last week at a £5.3bn valuation, the biggest listing in five years and the first IPO above £1bn since 2021.
Why it matters
- contradiction Airtel Money's £5.3bn valuation is 88% of the £6bn attributed to 11 IPOs, and the other ten above £100m cannot total £0.7bn. The IPO tally is either missing Airtel or on a different basis from the bid tally.
- constraint Relief confined to new listings can only act on future IPOs, a pipeline that produced 11 above £100m since 2023. It cannot reach the 42 bids already live.
- decision Hall's list includes changes to capital gains rules for domestic and overseas investors, faster index inclusion and scrapping stamp duty. City minister Lucy Rigby told City AM reform was "not a job done", so the order of the levers is still open.
Charles Hall, Peel Hunt's head of research, said the number and value of bids were running at "exceptionally high levels, raising concerns that the UK equity market is seeing a material depopulation" [6]. The buyer data in the same note is less dramatic. Overseas bidders are 64% of the 2026 figures, broadly flat on the year before [3]. That leaves 36% from buyers who are not overseas [18].
The 42 live bids compare with 40 across all of 2025 [1][2], but the companies are larger. £74bn over 42 is about £1.76bn a company, against about £0.875bn for 2025's 40 [19][20]. That is a ratio of roughly 2.0 [21]. The comparison sets a live count against a completed year, so 2026 can still add bids.
The 15-to-1 ratio in the headline sets bids made against IPOs completed [17]. A bid is not a takeover, and the report does not say how many of the 166 closed [4]. For the live group, the £74bn is a ceiling on what the bids can remove from the market [1].
Listings are also leaving London with no buyer involved. Since 2023, seven UK-based firms have chosen to IPO overseas [9]. Wise downgraded its London listing in favour of New York last year [10]. Nscale, a London AI infrastructure firm, filed for a US listing targeting a $35bn valuation earlier this year [11]. In our view the figures support the claim that London is emptying faster than it refills. They support the overseas-buyer part less, because that share has not moved and listing exits involve no acquirer.
Hall's preferred remedy is partly about transaction cost. He called ditching stamp duty on shares a key lever and said it makes "no sense for a UK investor to have a higher transaction cost for buying shares in a UK company than a US business" [13]. The 2025 Budget, under then-Chancellor Rachel Reeves, removed the 0.5% levy on UK stocks for newly listed companies in their first three years of trading [14]. Paul Taylor, chief of Thought Machine, told City AM the levy is "anachronistic" and that the reforms were not "big enough to really change anybody's mind either for or against" [15].
What to watch
- Whether the 42 live bids close, lapse or draw rival offers, since the completion rate sets how much of the £74bn ceiling leaves the market.
- Whether Peel Hunt restates its IPO tally to include Airtel Money's £5.3bn valuation, and whether another listing above £1bn follows it.
- Whether the government moves past the new-listing stamp duty holiday toward Hall's wider list of capital gains, index inclusion and stamp duty changes.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence50
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence55
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
According to a Peel Hunt note, 42 bids for London-listed firms are currently ongoing, with a total market capitalisation of £74bn.
- [2]
The 2025 total was £35bn across 40 bids for the entirety of the year.
- [3]
Overseas bidders make up 64 per cent of the 2026 figures, broadly flat with the previous year.
- [4]
Since the start of 2023 there have been 166 bids for firms with a price tag over £100m, with a collective value topping £180bn.
- [5]
Since the start of 2023 there have been just 11 IPOs above £100m (printed as '£100' in the source) for a total value of £6bn.
- [6]
Charles Hall, head of research at Peel Hunt, said the number and value of bids for UK firms were running at "exceptionally high levels, raising concerns that the UK equity market is seeing a material depopulation".
- [7]
Airtel Money completed its IPO on the London market last week with a valuation of £5.3bn, the biggest listing in five years and the first time since 2021 that the London Stock Exchange landed an IPO north of £1bn.
- [8]
Since 2023, seven UK giants have shifted their listings, blowing a £120bn hole in the London market.
- [9]
In the same period since 2023, seven UK-based firms have opted to IPO overseas.
- [10]
Money transfer firm Wise downgraded its London listing in favour of New York last year.
- [11]
London AI infrastructure firm Nscale filed for a US listing targeting a $35bn valuation earlier this year.
- [12]
Hall suggested intervention measures including shaking up the capital gains regime for domestic and overseas investors, fast-tracking index inclusion, and ditching stamp duty on shares.
- [13]
Hall pointed to ditching stamp duty on shares as a key lever, saying it makes "no sense for a UK investor to have a higher transaction cost for buying shares in a UK company than a US business".
- [14]
In the 2025 Budget, then-Chancellor Rachel Reeves launched a stamp duty holiday, removing the 0.5 per cent levy on UK stocks for newly-listed companies in their first three years of trading.
- [15]
Thought Machine chief Paul Taylor told City AM the levy is "anachronistic" and the recent reforms were not "big enough to really change anybody's mind either for or against".
- [16]
City minister Lucy Rigby told City AM that capital markets reform was "not a job done" and the government was "continually looking for ways that we can ensure we're being as competitive as possible".
- [17]
Bids outnumber large IPOs by about 15 to 1 since 2023 (166 bids against 11 IPOs).
- [18]
36% of the 2026 figures come from buyers who are not overseas.
- [19]
The average market capitalisation of the 42 live bids is about £1.76bn.
- [20]
The average market capitalisation across 2025's 40 bids is about £0.875bn.
- [21]
The average live bid in 2026 is roughly twice the 2025 average.
- [22]
Airtel Money's £5.3bn valuation is about 88% of the £6bn total attributed to 11 IPOs; the remaining ten would total £0.7bn, below the £1bn minimum implied by ten IPOs each above £100m.
Sources
1 independent publisher whose own reporting we read for this story.
- cityam.comLondon Stock Exchange faces ‘material depopulation’
1 article · October 12, 2026
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