Global insurance and reinsurance broking group Aon has said that new changes to the UK’s listing regime could “help boost economic growth and innovation on the UK stock market.”
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recently unveiled the biggest changes to the UK listing regime in decades, which are aimed to support a wider range of companies to issue their shares on a UK exchange and increase opportunities for investors.
“Overhauling the listing regime is part of a package of capital market reforms to ensure the UK is the place where companies can start, grow, scale and stay, and to help investors access assets that provide returns and support the real economy in which they live and work,” Aon noted.
It’s important to note that the broker’s focus on the stock market reform agenda stems from its multi-disciplinary roles at different points in the public and private markets ecosystem.
Across the investor side, Aon is a workplace pension provider with £6.8 billion of funds under management, as well as an investment adviser to pension funds and other clients.
In addition, the broker is also a signatory to the UK’s Mansion House Compact, an initiative to allocate a minimum of 5% of defined contribution (DC) default funds to unlisted equities by 2030 with the aim of unlocking over £50 billion of new capital.
As for the company side, Aon acts for private and publicly listed businesses in roles ranging from remuneration consultant and cyber security adviser, to insurance intermediary. In these and across other roles, the broker helps clients to unlock alternative forms of capital to support their growth and scale-up efforts.
Earlier this year, Aon UK joined the London Stock Exchange’s Marketplace, the forum for service providers to UK-listed issuers.
Joanna Sharples, senior partner at Aon Investments and Chief Investment Officer of Aon DC Solutions, commented: “These new changes from the FCA represent a key step in the UK’s broader stock market reform agenda and help create a more level playing field for investors in UK listed companies, complementing efforts elsewhere to unlock capital in the pension system and improve returns for members.”
Alistair Lester, co-CEO for Aon M&A and Transaction Solutions, said: “We see the overall package of UK capital market reforms and the inter-relationship between public and private markets, as important for creating a vibrant UK capital market. By nurturing UK growth businesses and enabling them to scale-up in the UK, they may, in time, progress to become UK listed companies and contribute to UK growth.”
Marcus Stuttard, head of AIM & UK Primary Markets at The London Stock Exchange, highlighted the liquidity in London’s equity market, illustrated by transactions of all sizes in the year-to-date, noting that the proposed crossover initiative between private and public markets would create the world’s first “cohesive funding continuum.”
Mark Austin, partner at Latham & Watkins and member of the UK’s Capital Markets Industry Taskforce, said: “Developing a broader equity culture in the UK is key to encouraging democratisation of wealth – and better communication with the UK public about the contribution that private investment makes to the UK economy plays an important part in that. More broadly, a strong and positive narrative is needed to help articulate the wide range of capital market reforms being adopted or already underway.”
