. Flutter, which owns Betfair and Paddy Power, plans to list in New York as well as London and may move across the Atlantic completely. Earlier this year, the building materials giant CRH switched its listing. The list goes on and on. For every ambitious company, and certainly for venture capital firms looking to cash in their investments, the American equity market is a lot more attractive than the British one. Of course, it is not hard to understand why it is so appealing. New York, and the Nasdaq in particular, is the world's stock market for tech companies, and the culture is far more welcoming to ambitious entrepreneurs. There are fewer rules, valuations are higher, and shareholders are more likely to back a grand vision. What's not to like about that? The dream may well have been oversold. Just take a look at some of the casualties. Only last week, the once rapidly growing healthtech app Babylon announced it was taking itself private again in a restructuring that will wipe out its existing shareholders. From $240, the shares are now worth less than a cent.){kind=link}
Listing across the Atlantic looks like a one-way ticket to oblivion
As the song has it, if you can make it there you can make it anywhere. Over the last few years many of the UK’s fastest-growing companies, and its smartest entrepreneurs, have decided to list their shares in New York instead of London. Valuations were higher, shareholders more supportive of dynamic, ambitious businesses, and there were fewer meddling rules to worry about.
Over the next few weeks, the chip-designer ARM and the gambling giant Flutter may well join them. So many companies have been crossing the Atlantic that ministers and regulators have started freeting about how to make London more attractive.
But it turns out that a New York listing may not be so great after all, with Wall Street turning into a graveyard for Britain’s best and brightest entrepreneurs. True, some of the companies that have struggled may have run into trouble anyway, but there is no question they made life harder for themselves by listing so far from their home base.
The queue of ambitious British companies planning a New York listing grows longer all the time. Arm is expected to float in the American market as soon as next month, with an estimated value of up to $70bn (£55bn). Flutter, which owns Betfair and Paddy Power, plans to list in New York as well as London and may move across the Atlantic completely.