After a wave of delistings, can London’s stock market reverse the decline?

London’s stock market has endured a difficult few years, marked by a wave of delistings and IPO snubs. The number of companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) has fallen from 2,429 in 2015 to 1,534 in May 2026—a decade low —according to LSE data compiled by Statista. More than 30 have left, or are planning to leave this year, including the asset manager Schroders and easyJet, which have both agreed to U.S. takeovers.  

U.K. markets suffer from a smaller domestic investor base and shallower pools of capital than the U.S. Meanwhile years of relative underperformance have depressed valuations of London-listed companies, making them increasingly attractive for foreign buyers and private equity takeovers.  

Some business leaders are pointing the finger at the exchange itself. Octopus Energy founder Greg Jackson has said the exchange needs more “hustle” to win IPOs back. 

It’s a narrative Julia Hoggett, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, is determined to push back on. Talk of the exchange’s decline, in her view, is overstated. 

Since joining LSE in 2021, Hoggett has driven a sweeping reform agenda designed to reverse the decline in flotations and boost capital market growth. In 2024, the U.K. rewrote its listing rules so that companies no longer need a shareholder vote for most acquisitions and gave founders more control after listing. The exchange has also reduced regulatory burdens on AIM, its junior market, to make it more attractive to international listings and has created Pisces, a new secondary market for trading existing shares.  

Hoggett says the reforms are already changing behavior. “There’s been a rise in acquisitions since the shareholder-vote rules were scrapped, and smaller companies are already using AIM’s revised rules,” she says. Total U.K. M&A value more than doubled to £124.2 billion ($167.8 billion) in the first half of 2026, according to PwC’s U.K. M&A Mid-Year Outlook, though the number of deals fell. 

The clearest sign of recovery, in Hoggett’s view, is the growing list of companies planning to list in London pipeline. “We have the largest pipeline for IPOs since 2005,” she says. “We do not have a shortage of great companies or capital. We need to stop throwing shade at ourselves as a nation, then be surprised if it’s a bit chilly and damp. We have a habit of talking ourselves down, rather than recognizing that we create world-leading companies here.” 

Britain produces more billion-dollar startups than any country besides America and China, according to the Hurun Research Institute, and topped the inaugural measuresHE Country 100 ranking in 2026, which rates national research ecosystems.  

U.K. IPO proceeds more than tripled in the first half of 2026 versus the same period last year, according to EY data. London remains Europe’s dominant capital market, recording more than twice the number of equity offerings of the next most active European exchange in the first half of 2026.  

“It [London] has long served as a gateway well beyond the continent,” Hoggett adds. London gives companies from India, China, and the Middle East a route into international capital that few other exchanges can match.  

The Uzbekistan’s National Investment Fund’s decision to begin trading on the London Stock Exchange earlier this year is one example of this. The IPO raised around $603 million and marked the first international equity offering from Uzbekistan. 

However, the Uzbekistan’s National Investment Fund listing was one of only seven London IPOs in the first half of this year. Hoggett attributes this to a broader decline in the number of companies going public. Between 1980 and 2000, an average of more than 300 companies a year went public in the U.S; in 2025, there were 90 IPOs. “The U.K. was the last major market to make that shift. I suspect that’s why commentators have mistaken a global structural shift for a specifically British problem.” 

Still, the numbers invite an unflattering comparison. The U.S. completed 72 IPOs in the first half of this year, raising $128 billion, London’s seven listings were worth $780 million. “We need to stop creating these false binaries,” Hoggett says, “especially since many U.K. companies that moved their listings to the U.S. have underperformed or failed outright.” 

Of the 21 U.K. companies that have floated in the U.S. since 2014, four are trading up, 13 have delisted, and the remaining 4 are trading down by 71% on average, according to LSE data shared with Fortune.  

“In London, even a mid-sized company can land in a major index almost as soon as it lists,” Hoggett says, triggering automatic demand from pension funds and ETFs required to hold the stock regardless of performance. In New York, that cushion is reserved for the largest companies, she adds.  

Reducing markets to “basis points, bid-cover ratios, and league tables,” in Hoggett’s view, misses the point. “Capital markets are a vital, direct driver of growth, jobs, and national prosperity that most countries treat as a matter of economic sovereignty.” 

Successive U.K. governments have explored ways to encourage greater public investment in the stock market. This is a move that Hoggett backs. “We need to incentivize U.K. investors to invest in the country,” she says.  

Stamp duty still applies to buying British shares, and pension and ISA tax reliefs—worth roughly £50 billion and £9 billion a year—carry no requirement that any of the capital be invested domestically. “If we are going to give you fiscal incentives to invest, we’d like at least a portion of that to be backing Britain.” 

The U.K. and Europe have historically over-indexed on holding wealth in cash accounts and housing rather than equities and higher-risk investments, Hoggett adds. “We have a culture focused on protecting people from downside risk rather than exposing them to upside potential.” 

Hoggett is betting that modernizing the exchange’s infrastructure can help London retain its competitiveness over the next decade. It is planning to let people trade digital versions of stocks through a new 24-hour platform, LSE 24, serving both institutions, who prefer the traditional 8am–4:30pm window, and retail investors, who expect to trade any time of day. 

The initiative works in tandem with a newly announced Digital Securities Depository, infrastructure built for digital shares. LSE has struck a deal with crypto exchange Kraken to explore trading digital securities alongside traditional stock. Client testing begins by the end of this year and LSE 24 is expected to go live in the first half of 2027. 

“Most founders put their money, their mortgage, and quite often their marriage on the line to create great companies,” Hoggett says. “We as a society should respect the fact that they’re taking that risk. My job is to continue to make the U.K. ecosystem as effective as possible to make it more straightforward for them to achieve those aspirations.” 

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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com