London Stock Exchange chief urges UK share investment incentives as firms look overseas

London Stock Exchange chief executive Dame Julia Hoggett urged the UK government on 7 October to make domestic share investment more attractive, as companies continue to consider listings outside Britain. In an interview with BBC News, she called for incentives to direct more investment towards UK companies. The government has not said whether stock-market reform will feature in its October Budget.

Hoggett told the BBC that Britain needed structural incentives if it wanted people to back companies at home. ‘We need to take the handbrake off,’ she said. Her proposals include scrapping the 0.5% tax on purchases of UK shares and introducing tax credits for domestic investment. They are proposals from the exchange chief, rather than decisions announced by ministers.

What Hoggett wants to change for UK investors

HM Revenue & Customs says people buying shares usually pay tax or duty of 0.5% on the transaction. Hoggett’s call to remove the charge would therefore affect a tax that investors can face when purchasing shares. She also backed tax credits for domestic investment and told the BBC that the UK had a tax-credit scheme until 2016.

Hoggett linked the investment question to where companies choose to raise capital. She said negative sentiment about the UK market, which she considered often exaggerated, had contributed to companies leaving in the past. ‘We need to stop throwing shade at ourselves as a nation,’ she told the BBC. The comments are her assessment of the market, rather than a measure of why any particular company moved.

What recent London listing figures show

The BBC described the LSE Main Market as comprising about 930 companies worth a combined £4.9 trillion. Almost 40% were international businesses from more than 80 countries, it reported. That international reach sits alongside concern about companies choosing another market for their next stage of growth, the issue Hoggett raised in her interview.

The BBC cited takeaway company Just Eat joining the Amsterdam exchange, travel group Tui choosing Frankfurt and Flutter, the owner of Paddy Power, trading in New York. Those examples illustrate different destinations for companies that left or moved from the London market. They do not establish that each company made its decision for the same reason.

EY-Parthenon counted 23 UK initial public offerings across London’s Main Market and AIM in 2025: nine on the Main Market and 14 on AIM. It said the flotations raised £2.1bn, up from £777.7m raised by 18 issuers in 2024. EY-Parthenon nevertheless cautioned that activity remained low against historical levels.

Eleven of EY-Parthenon’s 2025 IPOs came in the final quarter and raised £1.9bn. Its UKI IPO leader, Scott McCubbin, attributed the late-year pickup to postponed flotations proceeding amid more stable conditions and improving investor sentiment. He described the pipeline for 2026 as strong while saying the deal landscape remained uncertain.

The Financial Conduct Authority uses a narrower measure: its Official List data records 14 UK commercial-company IPOs in 2025 and 11 in 2024. Its count excludes AIM admissions and some other categories included in wider market totals. The FCA says IPO figures can differ because of methodology, so its 14 and EY-Parthenon’s 23 should not be read as conflicting counts of the same group.

The FCA also records 50 issuers delisting equity securities in 2025, down from 69 in 2024. Those totals cover categories beyond ordinary commercial-company departures; they are not a direct count of operating businesses leaving Britain. The regulator says it compiles the data for policy analysis and updates it quarterly.

Where the proposed tax change stands

EY-Parthenon said recent UK listing reforms and a three-year stamp-duty exemption for newly listed companies announced in the chancellor’s Autumn Budget were intended to improve London’s competitiveness. That exemption is distinct from Hoggett’s proposal to remove the tax on purchases of UK shares more generally. The Confederation of British Industry has also called for action on the outflow of firms, advocating lighter regulation, better marketing and investor incentives, according to the BBC.