Nasdaq on the hunt for more UK firms to list in US

 

A boss at a leading US stock exchange says the trend of UK companies going to New York to raise funds will continue.

Karen Snow, global head of listings at Nasdaq, helped lure Cambridge-based chip designer Arm Holdings to float on that exchange and told the BBC that other UK tech firms will follow.

Arm raised $4.87bn (£3.8bn) on Nasdaq in September, despite heavy lobbying to list its shares in London instead.

The Nasdaq raised $13bn in 2023 while the London Stock Exchange raised $972m.

Although there has always been a significant gap between the two exchanges, this year looks set to be the first time the LSE has failed to hit the $1bn mark for money raised for companies floating on it since records began in 1995, according to data from Dealogic.

'We're getting a lot of calls'

Mrs Snow agreed when asked if the Arm listing coup was indicative of a trend of her index luring UK companies away from their home financial capital market.

"We're having a lot of conversations with companies about listing in the US. We get a lot of inbound calls [from the UK] and we also make sure we're in front of the right CEOs," she said.

Mrs Snow said there were many conversations already under way to get more UK companies to cross the pond and raise money through a Nasdaq listing.