Authored by Ian Stirling, CEO, Streets Consulting
With Bloomberg reporting in April that South Korea had leapfrogged the UK to become the world’s eighth-largest stock market, in a global league table already dominated by Asian exchanges buoyed by semiconductors, AI, and broader technology activity in the region, it was perhaps no surprise that the future of Europe’s public markets emerged as one of the more interesting themes running through TradeTech Amsterdam this year. In particular, discussions repeatedly returned to whether the IPO model itself is genuinely broken, or whether the greater challenge lies within the broader ecosystem surrounding it.
Across discussions involving exchanges, regulators and market participants, the conversation felt notably more pragmatic than in previous years. Rather than debating public versus private markets in isolation, the focus has shifted towards how Europe and the UK rebuild a functioning capital formation pipeline capable of supporting companies from early growth stages through to scaled public-market maturity.
A recurring theme throughout the discussions was that competitive capital markets are increasingly being treated as strategic national assets. If the UK and Europe want to cultivate globally significant businesses across sectors such as AI, life sciences and quantum computing, they need domestic market structures capable of funding, retaining and scaling those companies locally rather than watching them migrate overseas as they mature.
In that context, one comment from Charlie Walker, Deputy CEO of the London Stock Exchange particularly stood out: an IPO should not be viewed as the starting point of a company’s journey, but rather the outcome of a healthy and properly connected financial ecosystem.
The Paradigm Shift: IPOs as an Outcome, Not a Starting Point
For years, policymakers frequently questioned why it mattered where a company chose to list. Today, that mindset has undergone a massive paradigm shift. Governments now recognise that competitive capital markets are vital strategic assets. If the UK and Europe want to cultivate the next trillion-pound companies in sectors like life sciences, quantum computing, or AI, they must have the domestic market infrastructure to support them. As the UK Chancellor recently phrased it, the overarching goal is to start, grow, scale, and keep world-leading businesses domestically, rather than losing them to overseas exchanges as they mature.
If the IPO is ultimately the output of a healthy capital markets ecosystem rather than the starting point, then the conversation naturally shifts towards what actually needs repairing underneath it.
One thing that became clear during the discussions at TradeTech is that the UK has already been quietly undergoing a fairly significant rethink of how its broader market infrastructure operates. Much of the debate around listings often focuses on headline IPO numbers, but several participants argued the deeper work has really been happening at the regulatory, liquidity and market structure level over recent years.
Some of that heavy lifting is already well underway:
Erasing the Cliff Edge: Private vs. Public is Not Binary
A major takeaway from the panels was that the choice between private and public markets is not a binary one. Every company relies on private financing before going public. The real issue has been the perceived ‘cliff edge’ between the two stages.
To smooth this transition, the UK has introduced the Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System (PISCES), a Private Securities Market. PISCES allows private companies to utilise public-market infrastructure for controlled, periodic secondary liquidity events. The company remains entirely private, dictates who gets to buy and sell, and chooses its trading windows. Impressively, the very first private share trade on public LSE infrastructure successfully settled just a few weeks ago.
Beyond merely offering liquidity, PISCES is acting as a real-world sandbox that gives private companies a safe, time-bound taste of what it feels like to be public. Companies are already creatively using this infrastructure to diversify their shareholder bases, particularly in cases where employees hold large stakes through employee share schemes.
Connecting Capital to Companies and The Cultural Hurdle
Despite excellent regulatory progress, a frustrating paradox remains: the UK holds the world’s third-largest pool of long-term capital and generates the fourth-largest number of unicorns globally, yet the two sides fail to connect.
Part of the solution lies in the massive consolidation of pension schemes currently underway. Defined contribution (DC) schemes will soon be required to manage at least £25 billion, while 86 local government authorities that manage roughly £500 billion have recently pooled into six major funds. This consolidation will help direct massive pools of long-term capital back into UK growth companies.
However, there is also the issue of idle cash. Roughly £800 billion is currently sitting in UK cash accounts and ISAs, actively losing real-term value. The regulator panel with the FCA’s Helen Boyd and the AFM’s Tanya Pieters-Gorissen highlighted that the barrier to activating this retail investment isn’t just about tax incentives; it is deeply cultural.
There is a severe lack of financial literacy, leaving seven million UK residents with at least £10,000 sitting entirely in cash with no investments. Many households have the capacity to invest but remain overly focused on avoiding fees rather than generating long-term returns. To shift this mindset, the UK and Europe must integrate financial education into the core curriculum, much like Finland has done, alongside initiatives like the UK’s new ‘investment future campaign’.
Market Structure, Frictions, and Defining Europe’s Path
To ensure this ecosystem functions flawlessly, policymakers must remove legacy frictions. The UK’s Stamp Duty on shareholdings was explicitly called out as a “malicious” and highly distortive tax that undermines liquidity and transparency. This is despite the three-year exemption for new listings on UK-regulated markets, introduced in November 2025. In a world moving toward tokenisation, outdated taxes like this will become nearly impossible to collect and actively deter companies from listing.
As we look ahead, the consensus is that despite ambitions for 24/7 trading, multilateral trading venues will remain absolutely crucial for price discovery, oversight, and maintaining orderly markets.
Crucially, the geopolitical positioning of Europe’s markets is shifting. Rather than simply attempting to copy the US market structure, European markets are becoming more self-confident and inward-focused. Meanwhile, the UK continues to position itself as a global hub for international flows. Both are intent on defining their own unique paths to deliver best execution for the end investor.
An Optimistic Outlook
When looking to the next five years, the vision is one of a seamless journey where companies can effortlessly move back and forth between private and public markets as they scale. The holistic reform of Europe’s capital ecosystem has genuinely begun. If policymakers, regulators, exchanges, and investors continue to collaborate and pull in the same direction, we won’t need to worry about fixing the IPO model; the IPO pipeline will naturally take care of itself.
