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The atrium of the London Stock Exchange Group offices in London, UK. The number of firms listing in London fell by 67% in 2022.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt in his Mansion House speech on Monday will set out new measures to heighten the appeal of British markets to firms seeking to float in its stock exchanges, UK’s Treasury said in a statement on Friday.
Hunt will also seek to roll back a European Union-era securities law, Treasury said.
The “Mansion House Reforms” will simplify rules for buying and selling shares, improve research facilities, deliver higher returns for investors, and lay out plans that allow private companies to access capital markets without floating on a stock exchange, according to the Treasury.
UK is set to approve recommendations in Rachel Kent’s Independent Research Report, paving the way for a new “Research Platform” to provide a one-stop-shop for firms looking for research experts, the statement added. Kent is a veteran financial services lawyer at Hogan Lovells.
UK had last year announced the launch of the Investment Research Review – an independent review of financial services investment research and its contribution to UK capital markets competitiveness, headed by Kent.
The approval also sets the way for potentially removing unbundling rules – an inherited EU law that requires brokers to charge a separate fee for research.
Separately, in an interview with the Financial Times, Hunt ruled out pre-election tax cuts this autumn, warning he must “double down” on inflation and would not “pump billions of pounds of additional demand” into the UK economy.
“We will not countenance tax cuts if they make the battle against inflation harder,” the newspaper quoted Hunt as saying. He acknowledged that meeting Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s promise to halve inflation by the end of the year was “going to be more challenging than we thought”.
Hunt will also address a compact by pensions companies to put 5% of their investments into high-growth businesses, up to 50 billion pounds ($64.18 billion), but will also propose regulatory reforms and threaten to intervene if inefficient small pension firms do not merge, the newspaper said.
FTSE 100 groups Aviva Plc, Legal & General and Phoenix Group Holdings are among those set to participate in the compact organized by the City of London Corporation, FT said, citing people with knowledge of the plans.
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